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Linda Hong Cheng, Founder of Infrajoy Labs, transforms digital accessibility by building ethical AI infrastructure that unlocks trillion-dollar elderly consumer segments currently excluded from technology markets due to systemic ageism and design failures. Originally a piano prodigy performing Bach inventions by age seven and intending to become a China studies professor, Linda discovered ethical AI during Columbia research on gender bias in Chinese protest events, where she became the youngest invited author for an Oxford Handbook chapter on decolonising computational methods after recognising algorithmic biases baked into natural language processing systems for non-European languages. At Oxford, her research reveals women are 19% less likely to access the internet globally, with double marginalisation occurring as older women face both gender-based digital exclusion and age-related usability barriers, creating intersectional disadvantages that become life-or-death issues during crises like her grandmother's COVID kidney surgery recovery, when the inability to order groceries online nearly proved fatal. Linda defines ethical AI broadly across algorithmic bias prevention, environmental impact concerns (data centres using citizens' drinking water for cooling), and systemic inefficiencies where pattern-matching VCs exclude diverse founders despite better performance potential, positioning ethics not as charity but as efficiency optimisation that unlocks massive untapped markets. Infrajoy Labs addresses the accessibility crisis where 70% of website user drop-offs result from small text size alone, building the first global golden standard for elderly usability through collaboration with health and financial firms who recognise that unusable platforms create literal life-or-death consequences when patients cannot book critical appointments. Linda champions Europe as the ideal ethical AI movement launchpad due to its measured approach balancing innovation with future consequence consideration, contrasting American "go, go, go" mentality with European thoughtfulness that creates sustainable movements, while working with EuroTech Federation stakeholders including the European Central Bank to establish collaborative industry standards that treat accessibility as fundamental infrastructure rather than cosmetic add-ons.
By Viraj Acharya5
11 ratings
Linda Hong Cheng, Founder of Infrajoy Labs, transforms digital accessibility by building ethical AI infrastructure that unlocks trillion-dollar elderly consumer segments currently excluded from technology markets due to systemic ageism and design failures. Originally a piano prodigy performing Bach inventions by age seven and intending to become a China studies professor, Linda discovered ethical AI during Columbia research on gender bias in Chinese protest events, where she became the youngest invited author for an Oxford Handbook chapter on decolonising computational methods after recognising algorithmic biases baked into natural language processing systems for non-European languages. At Oxford, her research reveals women are 19% less likely to access the internet globally, with double marginalisation occurring as older women face both gender-based digital exclusion and age-related usability barriers, creating intersectional disadvantages that become life-or-death issues during crises like her grandmother's COVID kidney surgery recovery, when the inability to order groceries online nearly proved fatal. Linda defines ethical AI broadly across algorithmic bias prevention, environmental impact concerns (data centres using citizens' drinking water for cooling), and systemic inefficiencies where pattern-matching VCs exclude diverse founders despite better performance potential, positioning ethics not as charity but as efficiency optimisation that unlocks massive untapped markets. Infrajoy Labs addresses the accessibility crisis where 70% of website user drop-offs result from small text size alone, building the first global golden standard for elderly usability through collaboration with health and financial firms who recognise that unusable platforms create literal life-or-death consequences when patients cannot book critical appointments. Linda champions Europe as the ideal ethical AI movement launchpad due to its measured approach balancing innovation with future consequence consideration, contrasting American "go, go, go" mentality with European thoughtfulness that creates sustainable movements, while working with EuroTech Federation stakeholders including the European Central Bank to establish collaborative industry standards that treat accessibility as fundamental infrastructure rather than cosmetic add-ons.