Roya Ramezani
Born1989 or 1990 (age 33–34)[1]
Iran
NationalityIranian
Occupation(s)Product Designer and Technologist
WebsiteOfficial website

Roya Ramezani (Persian: رؤیا رمضانی) is an Iranian designer and women's rights campaigner. She was selected for the BBC's 100 Women programme in 2017.

Career

Roya Ramezani was born in Northern Iran and was raised in Tehran,[2] but moved to Toronto, Canada, at the age of to be with her extended family and study. She studied at three different universities,[3] including York University and the School of Visual Arts in New York City.[2][4] She began to work in a diverse team in Silicon Valley as an intern at Google,[2][4] but realised that the women in the team were not interacting in meetings to the same degree as their male counterparts. This led to her thesis at SVA entitled "Exponent: Amplifying the Female Voices in Tech Discourse".[4][5] Inspired by the Hansen Writing Ball, she developed a new keyboard to empower women to use more strong language by reducing the size of the keys and adding full-word shortcuts such as "claim", "disagree" and "insist".[4] She moved to San Francisco, California, where she started working for JPMorgan in their branch innovation team.

She was named to the BBC's 100 Women programme in 2017.[1] As part of this, she spoke at an event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, about the issues faced by women in the field of technology development. This included developments in wearable technology and augmented reality. Ramezani's work in this area has been praised by her bosses at JPMorgan.[6]

Ramezani also created an art installation in Palo Alto, California, which was unveiled on October 5, 2017, the same day as the initial news story on the Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct allegations. The artwork, built on an a-frame, featured the hashtag "#Me Too".[3] This hashtag had originally been coined in 2006 by Tarana Burke,[7] although Ramezani said the inspiration for her work had come from a sexual assault she suffered while at a university and the response from her friends.[3] In the days after the installation, the actress Alyssa Milano used the hashtag in relation to Weinstein, causing it to go viral.[7]

References

  1. 1 2 "BBC 100 Women 2017: Who is on the list?". BBC News. 20 October 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 "The Millennial Planning the Banking institutions of the Long run". Huawei Global services. 26 September 2017. Archived from the original on 15 November 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 "100 Women: Why I chose #MeToo for my sexism experiment". BBC News. 20 October 2017. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "EXPONENT: Amplifying the Female Voices in Tech Discourse". School of Visual Arts. 31 August 2016. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  5. ↑ Peters, Adele (21 October 2016). "Never Be "Sorry" Again, With A Keyboard That Helps Women Use More Assertive Language". Fast Company. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  6. ↑ Butterly, Amelia; Ponniah, Kevin (6 October 2017). "Live Reporting". BBC News. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  7. 1 2 Ohlheiser, Abby (19 October 2017). "The woman behind 'Me Too' knew the power of the phrase when she created it – 10 years ago". The Washington Post. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
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