Kavya Pearlman: Winner of the 2024 Great Companies International Women Entrepreneur Award

Name: Kavya Pearlman

Business Name: XRSI - X Reality Safety Intelligence

Location: San Francisco Bay Area , USA

Establishment (Year): 2019

Category: Information Technology

Profession/ Specialty: Cybersecurity, Safety , Privacy and Ethics in Emerging Technologies

Website: xrsi.org

Social Media : Linkedin

Company Detail:

Headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area in the United States and Torino, Italy in Europe, X Reality Safety Intelligence (XRSI) is the world’s leading organization dedicated to providing intelligence and advisory services that are vital for the protection and well-being of emerging technology ecosystems. With a strong emphasis on critical aspects such as safety, privacy, security, human rights, human well-being, responsible innovation, governance, and regulation, XRSI offers comprehensive expertise to ensure the responsible and ethical advancement of emerging technologies.

By emphasizing Human Intelligence, XRSI brings together a global network of experts and thought leaders committed to shaping the future of technology in a way that prioritizes the welfare of individuals and society as a whole. They offer standardization, certification, policymaking, and workforce development professional advisory services for the emerging technology domain.

Unique Selling Proposition or Competitive Advantage:

XRSI, as the first such global effort, provides impartial, practical information about Immersive and emerging technologies-related risks and opportunities to governments, individuals, corporations, universities, agencies, and other organizations worldwide.

XRSI has created various programs focusing on the most critical aspects of the immersive and emerging technologies domains, such as Medical XR (Medical XR Advisory Council), Child Safety (Child Safety Initiative), Diversity and Inclusion (CyberXR Coalition), Trustworthy Journalism (Ready Hacker One), and the Metaverse Reality Check (The MRC), an oversight board by and for the citizens.

XRSI launched the first novel XRSI Privacy and Safety Framework for XR and Spatial Computing domain, which has been well received and has been a point of discussion among the key stakeholders and many regulatory entities worldwide. XRSI is currently working on several standards and frameworks, including Medical XR and Child Safety frameworks, for addressing global Privacy and Safety issues.

Since its foundation, XRSI has worked on many different projects, such as, but not limited to the first Standard Taxonomy for XR, defining the key terms in the domain and laying the ground for a shared research environment in the XR domain. This taxonomy is now being used to inform lawmakers worldwide as they gear up to lay the legal foundation and write laws in XR.

One of the projects she’s proudest of, at the moment, is the XRSI Privacy & Safety Framework for XR and Spatial Computing. As the hardware and software evolve, concern over the user privacy implications is also growing. In 2020, XRSI started releasing its own solution as a “baseline ruleset” to create accountability and trust for Extended Reality solutions while enhancing data privacy and safety for users. The research, development, and release cycle is now continuously happening. XRSI proudly advises several Big tech corporations and contributes to policy and law making for various governments globally, including UK, US, Australia, and many more.

Challenges Faced During the Journey:

1. Rapid Advancement in Emerging Technologies: Tackling the risks and opportunities arising from the rapid development of immersive technologies and AI.

2. Privacy and Data Protection in Emerging Technologies: Managing massive data collection associated with emerging technologies, particularly in immersive environments, and addressing the inadequacies of current privacy laws and data protection principles in the context of these technologies.

3. Child Safety in AI-Augmented Environments: Protecting children in AI-driven platforms, focusing on psychological safety and safeguarding their digital identities in these rapidly evolving environments.

4. Cybersecurity Challenges in the AI-Powered Metaverse: Addressing rising cybersecurity concerns in the evolving AI-powered metaverse, including data protection and the potential for new types of cyber threats.

5. Funding for Mission and Initiatives: Securing adequate funding to support initiatives and research in the safety, privacy, and security of emerging technologies and AI. This includes organizing events like Metaverse Safety Week to attract sponsorships and donations.

Advice for Women Entrepreneurs:

Kavya Pearlman was born in India, and since she was a child, she has always been inclined to inspect and solve problems. She wanted to become the Deputy Inspector General (DIG), a position truly based on ethics. It was this deep "right from wrong" moral compass that would lead her throughout her career.

She dreamed of coming to the US to have the freedom to do anything and be anyone without the weight of systematic traditions. This happened in 2007 when she moved to Chicago. For five years, she'd been working as a hairstylist. One day, she was cutting a gentleman's hair when he discussed his work as a security analyst at a bank. He noticed her immense curiosity and desire to learn more. After paying for the cut, he recommended reading "Cyber War" by Richard A. Clarke. A couple of chapters in, and she was hooked.

Sometimes intuition is the best guide. The book connected her profound ethical prudence and love for computers into one space. She knew then she wanted to be a cybersecurity officer. She applied to the top cybersecurity Master's programs in the country. DePaul, in Chicago, was at the top of her list, and this was the beginning of a new life.

Her story demonstrates that there's no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ path to be involved in the Responsible Tech ecosystem. What she can suggest to anyone interested in this domain is to ‘fail forward’.