Hessie Jones
Cofounding Member at PIISA
Hessie Jones
Cofounding Member at PIISA
Toronto, Ontario
Overview
Work Experience
Contributing Writer
2018 - Current
Forbes Media is a global media, branding and technology company, with a focus on news and information about business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship, leadership and affluent lifestyles. My focus is profiling thinkers, innovators within start-ups and organizations doing disruptive things in data and Artificial Intelligence to transform industry. If you have a story you think needs to be told please contact me at hessiej1228@gmail.com
Member of the Board of Advisors
2023
The Women in AI Ethics™ (WAIE) is a fiscally sponsored project of Social Good Fund, a California nonprofit corporation and registered 501(c)(3) organization with a mission to increase recognition, representation, and empowerment of brilliant women in this space who are working hard to save humanity from the dark side of AI.
Cofounding Member
2020
Today we are plagued with our information strewn all over the web. Every time we create an account for applications, social media, or our favorite retail sites, we are opening up avenues to create an ever-ending footprint that lays witness to our intentions, our motivations, behaviors –– all linked to our identities. The advent of AI/ML opened up opportunities to contextualize the web, and every piece of data in an effort to surface understanding and insights in a more efficient manner to drive better decisions for businesses and governments. The fallout of this opportunity has also seen the emergence of industries that have profited from the use of personal information: data brokers, advertising platforms, and emerging technology leveraging biometric, facial recognition, location and sensor data. When the biggest companies that collect, aggregate, and contextualize data fail to remedy or change the way they do things, more vulnerabilities are unleashed. While legislation continues to address the complaints and harms that emerge within industry, there also needs to be a proactive will to mitigate these downstream impacts without hampering innovation. We began this collaboration to create an open Privacy NLP framework with the goal of developing a Global Privacy Protection standard and making privacy tools readily accessible to all.
Technology Innovation Manager
2022
As an Innovations Manager, Hessie provides the necessary support for Altitude Accelerator’s programs including Incubator and Investor Readiness. She will be the liaison among key stakeholders to provide operational support and ultimately drive founder success. “I’ve always walked in the shoes of many of these incredible founders who want to change the world. This world needs game-changing solutions for the impending challenges with the environment, data privacy and security and emergence of 5G technology. There are many lessons to learn from a start-up journey and having been on the other side of the table, I want to make a deeper contribution and provide the necessary support towards helping founders reach their goals and scale their companies.”
Podcast Host and Producer, Tech Uncensored
2022
Tech Uncensored: Crucial Analysis in Tech. This is a weekly video podcast brought to you by Altitude Accelerator. Hosted by Hessie Jones, we explore emerging news, hot topics, and current events. We engage with subject matter experts, founders, and advisors in Investment–Venture Capital, Equity Crowdfunding, and across Industry–Clean Tech, Biotech, Generative AI, Blockchain, Web3, Privacy, Security etc. who weigh in on the challenges that startup founders face today, as well as the profound opportunities that come with emerging tech and market adoption. We do a bi-weekly LinkedIn Live, and we syndicate to Youtube and our audio podcast is on Transistor Radio. Catch us wherever you get your podcast
Co-Founding Member
2020
MyData Canada is a collective of Canadian privacy, digital identity cybersecurity practitioners and professionals advocating for Canadians’ right to data self-determination. We believe in a human-centric approach to systems design. We also believe that legal reform and educational awareness are required to spark the adoption of privacy-preserving alternatives that will ensure Canadians trust in our institutions while we advance Canadian innovation in a digital era. We have united amidst a global pandemic that has focused our attention on the importance of trust among communities, as the control and power are in the hands of centralized authorities – both governmental and non-governmental. The high value and demand for individuals’ personal data as the emergent centrepiece of modern life is a reality as dependence on data from all sectors will continue unabated. Indeed, collection and control of personal data is the defining feature of politics (elections and partisan politics), public health (contact tracing), and world economy (where 8 of the 10 Big Tech companies is driven by personal data). As long as individuals continue to create digital footprints, and as long as industry and government rely on data-driven decision-making, there needs to be a balance in what data are needed to effectively make those decisions while preserving individual data rights. Vision MyData Canada MyData Canada’s vision is to become an essential voice in the midst of technological and social change that impacts the data rights of all Canadians and influences the national debate where policy, technology, education, and business intersect. Mission MyData Canada MyData Canada is a local presence of MyData Global. We are committed to disseminating, contextualizing and operationalizing MyData Global principles in Canada through advocacy and education, through ready solutions and through companies aligned with our security/privacy values.
Member
2021
The world’s largest global community for women in venture capital to connect, collaborate, and create new opportunities.
Contributing Writer
2020
Grit Daily embodies — and covers — the change of our times. Dominated by brands, Grit Daily covers how brands make and shape the international landscape and make every effort to influence our decisions and shape the world around us. Some brands become monopolies and get us to fall in love with them; in other cases, the people behind them are filled to the brim with controversy and scandal. We’ve learned a thing or two in our combined 400+ combined years of reporting. Champions Of Live Journalism. In only its second year, Grit Daily launched annual events during Miami Art Week, Sundance, SXSW along with speaker’s dinners at CES, Web Summit, Collision, Amazon Alexa’s Voice Summit, Ascent, The Next Web and many others. Grit Daily also hosts monthly Business Breakfast Roundtables for executives in business and separately evening Pop-Up Fireside Summits for in-depth discussions on contemporary issues. We invite you to our events page to learn more about those opportunities to meet real journalists and hear their interviews one-on-one and panel style, live.
Venture Partner
2020 - 2022
We do Venture Capital - DIFFERENTLY Matr = Matter We are a seed-stage fund that invests in Underestimated Founders: BILPOC (Black, Indigenous, LatinX, Persons of Colour), Women, Newcomers, Persons with a Disability, and from 2SLGBTQ communities. Data shows a gap in venture capital funding for Underestimated Founders. Some people view this as a pipeline problem but data proves otherwise. At Matr Ventures, we view this as the greatest investment opportunity. Over the next 5 years, we will power up 100 Underestimated founder-led companies that are creating game-changing innovations and growing our global economies. If you are interested in learning more please reach out hello@matrventures.com
Editorial Writer
2018 - 2022
Sharing concepts, ideas, and codes Towards Data Science provides a platform for thousands of people to exchange ideas and to expand our understanding of data science. Our audience is mixed, consisting of readers entirely new to the subject and expert professionals who want to share their inventions and discoveries.
Chief Of Staff
2020 - 2022
Founded in 2017, the Better Ethics and Consumer Outcomes Network (BEACON) is a social innovation organization that operates at the intersection of human-centered design, social impact, and public policy. BEACON’s purpose is to advance the quality of human-computer experiences through values-based technology education and innovation. Our goal is to help businesses maintain innovative flexibility and avoid restrictive regulations through education, strategic consulting, and principled innovation that creates positive outcomes for both business and society.
Education
BBA
1986 - 1990