AI Liliya Akhtyamova

First, I wanted to cover Liliya’s role in the most recent project of developing the Career Pathing feature within a more global Opportunity Marketplace product, a new flagship Talent Cloud product. Liliya is playing an integral role in helping to shape the product from its inception. The Career Pathing feature helps employees identify opportunities for growth within their current companies, built for both enterprise and mid-sized customers, the feature identifies roles for career advancement – be it vertical or horizontal moves. The product prioritizes the individual and allows one to be aware of the skills they possess, the skills they need to develop in order to progress into a particular role. The incremental release of this service is planned for this Autumn and Winter of  2022. It will potentially impact over 1M people around the globe and help companies build and retain diverse and successful teams.                                                                                                         https://www.icims.com/products/talent-cloud-applications/opportunity-marketplace

Her personal experience of being a woman in Data Science and the work she has done for Career Pathing lead her to the idea to give back to the community. She created a talk track that brought the two elements together and gave the talk at the PyLadies meetup in Dublin in March this year. It was a special event linked to International Women’s Day with the topic #breakthebias. The link to her talk will be attached below. In February this year, she also got involved with Women in AI Ireland by mentoring women who were entering the AI field and required some extra support from an expert. Together with her mentees, they developed an AI solution that they presented to a broad audience in May. The link to their showcase will also be attached. Since then, she became a permanent member of Women in AI Ireland, where they work on new initiatives that will take place in the next year.

Just recently, in August this year, Liliya took part in and together with the team, won a week-length hackathon organized by the iCIMS parent company, Vista Equity Partners (one of the largest equity funds investing in enterprise software, https://www.vistaequitypartners.com/about/). More than 50 Vista portfolio companies took part in this competition this year. Liliya’s team solution was called DEI (Diversity and Inclusion) Hiring Propeller, designed to help recruiters attract a diverse, under-represented applicant segment by improving their job postings. The main goal was to promote balance and fairness, meeting diversity goals while lowering the hiring time. Their solution not only won the competition but additionally got recognized with the special distinction as the Best ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) solution (award certificate is attached). The product idea is now part of the Roadmap, targeted for release in 2023, when it will start making an impact.

Her additional extra-curriculum activities within our organization include being a member of the internal company hackathon organizing committee, speaking at company-wide events about communities that help women begin AI journey, and promoting participation in those communities. Liliya was also approved for and is submitting a patent application for the innovative method to improve candidate resume matching that she developed with her Data Science team colleague. As a recognition of her achievements, she has recently received a company Innovation Award announced at the company-wide internal Summit (certificate is attached).

Graduating from the Ph.D. program, she also gives back to the research community by reviewing papers for high-impact scientific journals.

Liliya is extremely passionate about data science and diversity. She is making a significant contribution to iCIMS, our customers, and the community beyond work. She is dedicated to making Data Science more attractive and attainable for women and I know she will only be amplifying her efforts in the future. I am delighted to nominate her for the Women in AI award.