Oakland Privacy is thrilled to announce that Yadi Younse will be our 2022 Privacy Rights Fellow, a new part-time special projects position that has generously been funded by the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment. We had a dozen excellent candidates and it was incredibly difficult to choose just one.
Yadi comes to Oakland Privacy after dipping into grassroots privacy activism with Pasadena Privacy for All, where she has set up privacy advocacy infrastructure and worked on Shotspotter and Facial Recognition issues with her local City Council.
Yadi holds a B.A. from UCLA and an MBA from American International College, and among her varied work experiences in the private and public sector, is work with a social impact startup that was building a product that utilized facial recognition for identity verification. Yadi notes:
I monitored our enrollments and was so alarmed to see the high rejection rate of people of color that I worked fervently with engineers to improve the algorithms.
She is coming off a year-long mayoral campaign where she served as chief of staff for a Pasadena mayoral candidate.
When not trying to fix the algorithims, Yadi can be found hiking in the Angeles National Forest and designing costumes for youth arts performances.
Please join us as welcoming Yadi as OP’s 2022 Privacy Rights fellow.