Rachel Payne to Keynote Women in Technology Luncheon

Ignite Strategic Communications — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 17:11:34 +0000

Rachel Payne has launched and sold tech companies, run for a congressional seat, managed foundations, and built global strategies for an impressive list of companies. On Oct. 22, Payne will share her experiences and insights with women working in tech and entertainment at the annual Women in Technology Luncheon, presented by HPA Women in Post and SMPTE. The popular gathering takes place during the SMPTE 2018 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition at its new location at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

“Rachel’s depth of experience is extremely relevant to those of us who navigate the many facets of entertainment technology,” said Kari Grubin, chair of HPA Women in Post. “She has accomplished so much during her career, and we look forward to sharing this time with Rachel and hearing her illuminating perspective on doing business in the tech industry.”

Payne is CEO of FEM Inc., a holding company founded by women whose mission is to serve and empower diverse audiences. In 2015, FEM Inc. launched Prizma, an AI platform for media, entertainment and telecom companies. Prizma was acquired by Nielsen Gracenote in May 2018.

Payne co-founded FEM Inc. after a long and successful run as an executive at Google. Hired onto the founding team of Google.org as a Senior Program Officer and spearheading their early strategy and charitable operations, Payne later joined Google’s international business operations team and led projects in emerging markets focused on building technology infrastructure and business ecosystems as a Country Manager and on the regional Africa leadership team. She led cross-platform media sales teams as Head of Industry for Technology for Southern California. In Payne’s Global Strategic Alliances role, she worked with top executives across the company to develop comprehensive strategies for their largest global partners, including Sony, Disney, NewsCorp and Samsung. She served externally as the global point of contact for some of the company’s most important relationships.

Payne has been on the founding or early teams of several successful ventures in Silicon Valley including Hotwire (acquired by IAC) and Billpoint (acquired by eBay). In 2005, she co-founded inDplay (acquired by Discovery Media Group) – a cloud-based rights management company that provides cross-platform distribution for premium content – and served on the board of directors until 2007; angel investors included Eric Schmidt, William Randolph Hearst III, Rob de Santis and Shai Agassi.

Payne has served on the board of directors for multiple NGO and social purpose organizations, including BRAC USA, KCET/LinkTV public media company and CREDO Mobile (Working Assets). She earned an MBA in Global Management and Public Management from Stanford University and a B.A. with distinction from Smith College. She resides in California.

“I look forward to the conversation with Kari and the women and men who will be part of the Women in Technology lunch,” said Payne. “I see this moment as one of the most important of our lifetimes, from a social, technological and political standpoint, and I am eager to engage with this audience to build an exciting and important coalition of experience and action.”

The Women in Technology luncheon is an annual event held in conjunction with the SMPTE Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition, the world’s premier forum for the exploration of media and entertainment technology, featuring world-renowned technology thinkers, thought leaders, and innovators. Last year, Madeline Di Nonno, CEO, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, was the guest speaker. Previous speakers have included Victoria Alonso, Wendy Aylsworth, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, and Michelle Munson. Advance registration is required and early registration is encouraged; seating is very limited and the event consistently sells out.

Tickets for the Women in Technology luncheon are required and available with SMPTE 2018 conference registration packages, or are available for separate purchase as “ticket-only” registration. Registration and other information can be found at smpte2018.org/women-in-tech.html.

Those who purchase tickets may use promo code WIT2018 to receive a complimentary exhibits-only pass for SMPTE 2018. Complimentary passes are limited to new exhibits-only registrations and may not be used for previous registrations, any other conference registration packages, and/or applied to special event ticket purchases.

SMPTE 2017: Monitoring Gender Bias With Machine Learning

Cristina Clapp — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 09:30:00 +0000

LOS ANGELES—At Monday's Women in Technology Luncheon at the SMPTE 2017 Technical Conference & Exhibition, the discussion was focused on innovative, actionable solutions to recognize and address gender bias. Presented by SMPTE and HPA Women in Post, the event introduced the audience to some of the tools developed by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, an organization that studies how media portrays women and girls and how negative gender stereotypes influence cultural and social behaviors and beliefs.

Madeline Di Nonno, CEO, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media The Institute's CEO Madeline Di Nonno detailed to the audience—and interviewer Kari Grubin, co-chair of HPA Women in Post—the development of the Geena Davis Inclusion Quotient (GD-IQ), a software tool that analyzes audio and video media content.

Funded by Google.org and incorporating Google's machine learning technology, and the University of Southern California's audiovisual processing technologies, GD-IQ is designed to more accurately measure gender representation on screen.

Di Nonno described GD-IQ simply as "a spell-check for gender bias." The tool has learned to detect different characters on screen, determine their gender and calculate how often and for how long they spoke in relation to one another.

The software was used to analyze the 100 highest grossing (domestic) live-action films from the years 2014, 2015 and 2016, and the results may not be surprising, or encouraging: Women were underrepresented in all ratings categories included in the 100 highest grossing films of the past three years; men are seen and heard nearly twice as often as women; women were barely seen in Academy Award-winning films. (The full methodology can be found here.)

Di Nonno couldn’t stress enough the impact this makes in terms of gender bias. "Those media images are baked in [to the audience's consciousness]... What we see onscreen greatly influences our views on society."

As an example, Di Nonno recalls how Davis, herself an Olympic-level archer, observed a significant increase in interest in archery among girls and women. When the Institute surveyed USA Archery members, it found that 70 percent of the girls interviewed responded that Katnisss Everdeen from “The Hunger Games” and Princess Merida from “Brave” (both female film leads, both archers) influenced their decision to take up archery. “The Hunger Games” and “Brave” were released in 2012, and participation in archery rose 86 percent from 2013 to 2014, with women's participation increasing 105 percent during that period of time. The full results of that research can be found here.

Jennifer Lawrence ("Katniss Everdeen") stars in Lionsgate's “Hunger Games” film series. In a study of archers, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media found that 48.5% of female respondents under 18 say Katniss Everdeen had "a lot" or "some" influence on their decision to take up archery. Di Nonno also pointed out some encouraging financial statistics that the Institute cites when collaborating with studio and networks: "Female-led films do better at the box office, earning 16 percent more than male-led films. So if you can make more money with female-led films…"

Noting that because GD-IQ is "built off an API, it can be customized for all kinds of research," she explained that the Institute ultimately plans to release GD-IQ as a product to third-party developers, with a text-based tool soon to be introduced.

Di Nonno said she considers GD-IQ something of "a magic bullet for systemic change."

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Rachel Payne to Keynote Women in Technology Luncheon

SMPTE 2017: Monitoring Gender Bias With Machine Learning