The 2017 MedTech Boston 40 Under 40 Healthcare Innovators

“Despite this intimacy, my machine had no clue how I was feeling. Even worse, as I communicated online with my family back home, I felt that all my emotions disappeared in cyberspace,” she said.

As a result of this experience, the computer expert would later become the CEO and Co-Founder of Affectiva, a startup attempting to create emotion-sensing technology and machinery.

“We’re increasingly living more of our lives online – and that digital world is devoid of emotion,” she explained.

At Affectiva, el Kaliouby hopes to build stronger artificial emotional intelligence, also called Emotion Al, in a world where humans are becoming more conversational with technology.

“We want to be synonymous with The Emotion Company. This is a very broad vision that has the potential to transform many industries, from advertising research to automotive, robotics and mental health.”

She explained that their devices have an emotion chip that reads facial expressions, analyzes tone of voice, and have built-in emotion awareness to “adapt emotions in real time.”

“I am especially passionate about the potential to transform mental health. Today, when you walk into a doctor’s office, you are not asked what your blood pressure is, the nurse just measures that. That is not true for mental and emotional health; Emotion AI can transform how clinicians quantify and track mental health conditions,” she says.

Outside of the office, the mother of two, ages 8 and 13, enjoys getting involved in her children’s extra curricular activities and field trips. She also enjoys traveling with her family. When the Affectiva head isn’t building emotion-sensing technology, she likes to boost her mood and raise endorphins with Zumba three times a week.