Maya Ajmera, president and CEO of the Society for Science and executive editor of Science News, spoke with Mohamad Ali, senior vice president for IBM Consulting, IBM’s global professional consulting services unit. The global organization spans 150 countries and solves complex problems using technology and AI-based assets. Ali is a 1988 graduate of the Science Talent Search (STS), a program of the Society for Science.

How has participating in STS influenced your life? Do you have a favorite memory from that competition?

I have several memories that I remember fondly. When I visited Washington, DC to compete in STS, I visited the US Capitol, a place I had never visited before. It was such an amazing experience. I also met Nobel laureates during the competition. I’m a kid from Queens. I’m not supposed to meet Nobel Prize winners. The whole experience was just incredibly inspiring.

Beyond the event itself, the two years leading up to it were impactful, from researching my project to learning how to write a high-caliber paper that other scientists could read. I would say that in some ways STS set my life on course.

What made you pursue science?

I’m from Guyana, a small country next to Venezuela that very few people have ever heard of. I came to the United States when I was 11 years old and I didn’t have much. Everything was new; everything was different. In a way, coming from such a humble background and being able to compete in STS is one of the great things about STS. Find students wherever they are.

We moved to Queens when we came to the United States, and I went to middle school and high school. I struggled with my language based classes but the numbers were the same in any language. So math and physics became my friends. One of my high school teachers suggested I apply to Stuyvesant High School, one of the specialized high schools in New York. While at Stuyvesant, a woodshop teacher encouraged me to get involved in scientific research. I started doing projects focused on solar, and eventually he recommended that I do a project that the STS program might be interested in.

I decided to do a fusion project, but I was not clear how to do a fusion project during high school. My professor recommended that I call some people at Columbia University to see if anyone was working on this topic, and I ended up connecting with Michael E. Mauel, who still teaches at Columbia today. He said I could work with him and we started building a machine to simulate how particles would behave in a magnetic field. Then I did experiments that formed the basis of a paper.

In a way, it was a series of accidents, from meeting that teacher in high school to meeting my woodshop teacher to the luck of Mauel inviting me into his lab. All of those chance encounters, combined with people being willing to help me, had a huge impact on the path of my life.

Throughout your career, you’ve worked at the cutting edge of both technology and industry. Can you tell us a little about your professional journey?

After STS, I went to Stanford University, then worked for a neural network start-up. Then I joined IBM for 14 years. I worked elsewhere in the industry, including HP, Carbonite and IDG, for the next 14 years, and now I’m back at IBM working on neural networks and AI. The company’s interest in generative AI technology and new quantum computing technologies is such an exciting opportunity. Personally, I think IBM is the world leader in quantum computing. I am very excited to see what kinds of problems quantum computing can solve for humanity.

What excites you most about the changing AI landscape?

I’m most excited about the problems these new technologies will be able to solve. Of course, this is both a good thing and a bad thing. Great technologies in the wrong hands or not managed responsibly could be used for purposes that are not for the betterment of society.

This is part of the reason I returned to IBM. The technologies coming into the world now are incredibly powerful, and I want to work on them for a company that I believe prioritizes ethics. By using these incredibly powerful AI and quantum technologies in a responsible way, where we know how the AI ​​models are trained, we know where the data comes from, and we know what kind of biases are present, we can set limits on the decisions that can be made. We need these kinds of powerful technologies to solve problems like climate change.

You’ve been an outspoken advocate for increasing diversity in tech. Why do you think this is important?

In some ways, it’s personal. I came from an underserved community, and because of the professors I met and institutions like Stuyvesant and STS, I got a kick out of it. I had the opportunity to contribute. The world would be a much better place if everyone could bring their best and contribute. There is a very good chance that the cure for cancer is in the brain of a child in one of our poorest communities. We have to give the child a chance to bring that cure to society. Having lived it, I see the value in providing opportunities to all who are willing to take advantage of them.

What advice do you have for young people starting out in higher education or their careers?

I can only speak from my own experience and what has worked for me, but I would say this: study hard and enjoy it. You don’t know what you don’t know. It’s a complicated sentence, but for me, I always thought I knew everything. But I didn’t. Learning helps you discover those things. Some of the things you will discover will change your life dramatically – hopefully for the better. Learn as much as you can and keep learning all your life.

Who inspired you as a young person and who inspires you today?

I was inspired by the great scientists: Einstein, Ada Lovelace and Marie Curie. They all wanted to solve problems and make the world a better place. Today it is very similar. I am inspired by all the people who work to solve hard problems with science and then bring those solutions to society in a responsible way.

IBM has committed to training 2 million people, mostly from disadvantaged communities, in AI over the next three years. You can be worried about AI or you can embrace it, put it in your toolkit and become even more valuable than you are today. Many companies like ours, leading scientific innovation, are adopting artificial intelligence in a way that helps society, which I think is inspirational.

There are many challenges facing the world today. What keeps you up at night and what gives you hope for the future?

There are plenty of challenges: global geopolitical instability and war, for example. We have more war now than we have had in a long time. And people migrate because of war and because of climate change.

Once again, my answer is informed by my own background growing up in a poor community. Now that I can afford to give back, I contribute to organizations like Oxfam, where I was on the board for 10 years. These types of organizations give me hope, knowing that there are people out there working hard to make our world a better place.

Sometimes it’s a little scary that humanity waits until it reaches a precipice before taking action. But time and time again, we have acted as a human race. I tend to just be an inherently hopeful person, and given the capabilities I see in the world brought about by science and technology, I am full of hope.