Avaya XXoom’s Features for Gender Inequity on Conference Calls
By Kim Soo Bok
In a Bold Move, Avaya, a global leader in solutions to simplify and enhance communications and collaboration, announced the launch of a video conferencing solution that allocates airtime based on a participant’s gender and status within an organization.
Topher Johnson, XXoom’s product manager, underscored the pressing need for a real-time ‘dynamic throttling’ tool. “The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the troubling trend toward corporate democratization facilitated by video conferencing platforms. In the past, when you had a meeting, female employees generally knew their place and when to speak. Last week I was on a video call where female employees thought they had the same right to speak as the leaders of the firm. In an office setting, this would be shut down with a subtle eye roll. But that type of non-verbal cue is lost in video conferencing.”
Avaya’s engineers utilized machine learning to monitor face-to-face meetings and then translated the derived ‘pecking order’ into video conferencing throttling rules. Margaret Chang, Corporate Social Responsibility Lead of M&A, a leading consulting firm, advocates for the allocations. “Based on a statistical analysis of meetings from the past 10 years, the leadership has compromised. Each woman would count as three-fifths of a person for conference airtime. This also allows for women to continue taking the secretary role in meetings, continuing the historically-proven competency. In organizations such as ours, we don’t have the time to resolve the issues that are coming up with technologies undermining the social structures that have made it possible to get the work done efficiently in the corporate setting. We are excited about XXoom’s capacity to replicate what we have been doing so well.”
Once calibrated, XXoom takes over. “Our calls have gotten a lot more efficient. We no longer have to put up with tedious digressions from Safety and Corporate Compliance. I do miss seeing those sexy skirts,” stated Robert Moore, CEO of Murray Energy, a coal company plagued by safety and compliance concerns.
The XXoom product comes pre-configured with the Fembot Suite® of filters that synchronously mute any female voice when a male needs to say something or needs to rephrase what a woman was saying so that other conference participants can understand. It also employs AI natural language capabilities to infer the context of a conversation in real-time and determine whether female participation is appropriate. “The XXoom platform is able to tell if the conversation is about event planning or HR issues. You know, stuff where it might make sense to have a woman’s input,” stated Johnson.
The Malebot Suite® is an add-on feature which fast-forwards male voices repeating what they said, or repeating what a woman has said in their words. Other XXoom iterations in development include *swagger enhancement filters to change middle-aged, white men into avatars with full-heads of hair.