STARWEST - Conference Speaker: Davar Ardalan

Conference archive

Davar Ardalan

IVOW
Davar_Ardalan

Davar Ardalan is the founder and storyteller-in-chief of IVOW, a cultural storytelling startup powered by AI. In 2019, Ardalan also served as deputy director of the Presidential Innovation Fellows Program in Washington, DC.  Prior to this, she was a public broadcasting journalist for twenty-five years, mostly at NPR News, where she designed stories anchored in multiculturalism and steeped in historical context. In 2015, her last position at NPR was senior producer of the Identity and Culture Unit. Realizing that there is a gaping hole in AI algorithms that will define our future stories, she created IVOW, bringing together a team of journalists and technologists to create deeply inclusive stories. Ardalan, who has also served as managing editor at Hanson Robotics, has been recognized with the 2017 NASA Team Leadership award for Space Apps, a Gracie Award from the American Women in Radio and Television, and a shout-out in the popular comic strip Zippy. In May 2014, she was the recipient of a United States Ellis Island Medal of Honor for individual achievement and for promoting cultural unity.