Maaz Rana
Business
A.I
Equity
ABOUT ME
Co-founder at Knockri
Entrepreneur, A.I Tech Enthusiast, Futurist, Advocate of Diversity and Inclusion.
Hello, I am Maaz Rana - a champion of inclusion and belonging. I am on a mission to help eliminate unconscious hiring bias and equitably increase diversity in the workplace.
I am a keynote speaker and a co-contributor with LinkedIn on the Future of Work report “Now Hiring: The Skills Companies Want that Young Canadians Need.” In addition to being a leader in HR transformation and A.I ethics, Amnesty International has recognized me as a thought leader in “The Future of Work” and “Disruption of Artificial Intelligence”.
I am often asked to share my thoughts on topics covering diversity, inclusion and belonging, the future of work, HR transformation, as well as various topics concerning Artificial Intelligence, disruption and entrepreneurship.
Much of my time is spent as a Co-founder of Knockri, where I am fortunate to realize my many passions. Knockri is an A.I. Behavioural Assessment tool – a leader in HR technology that has proved to improve the gender and racial makeup of businesses, across various industries and fortune 1000 enterprises
Press
Coverage of Knockri & Myself
Knockri in Techcrunch - Why achieving diversity in tech requires firing the industry's 'cultural fit' mentality
"Companies like Knockri develop talent recruitment products that screen job applicants objectively. Built without the often bias-heavy elements of gender, culture and ethnic background entering the picture until final stages of interviewing. Their ultimate goal: to boost representation of minorities, women and people from diverse backgrounds on interview shortlists for tech jobs and in workforces fueling the global economy."
"The importance of diverse data sets is hard to overstate for engineers. Knockri, one company I work with at MaRS, has developed a system to improve the screening of job applicants using AI that deliberately ignores characteristics of race, gender and disability status. The company is based in Toronto, where more than 50% of the population is foreign-born, because it could easily access multicultural data sets to train its AI platform."
COVID-19 spurs adoption of AI-powered recruitment and screening tools
VentureBeat published an article about AI-powered candidate screening tools. We're glad to have Knockri highlighted as an A.I. based skills assessment helping companies and candidates stay connected during these tough times!
"According to a 2018 survey conducted by Knockri, an AI video-based skills assessment startup, companies using its screening suite see up to a 62% reduction in costs and a 68% drop in time when filling positions."
World Economic Forum report: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 4.0.
Great to have Knockri contribute on such a timely WEF report alongside some really amazing folks living and breathing D&I. If you’re an HR leader looking to use tech to further diversity, equity and inclusion, this report is a must read
Did you know that 59% of HR leaders are currently interviewing candidates over video, with the majority of this group planning to continue virtual interviews post-COVID.
Great to see Knockri's COO Maaz Rana interview for the HRD Canada Magazine about how interviewing has transformed over the past few months.
Knockri Named a Top Startup for Tackling Racial Bias & Discrimination
Startus Insights analyzed 326 startups & scaleups tackling racial bias and discrimination. Knockri, a member of SAP.iO Foundry San Francisco’s HR Tech Cohort was named one of their top 5 promising picks.
Betakit: Knockri raises $3million seed round
Toronto-based Knockri, which has developed an artificial intelligence-based (AI) video recruiting tool aimed to enable fairer hiring processes, has closed $3 million CAD in seed funding. This round brings the startup’s total funding to date to $3.4 million.
"When algorithms are designed with recognition of the tendency for humans to exhibit bias in the hiring process, company co-founder and COO Maaz Rana says they can assist in talent acquisition "by consistently presenting an objective measure of someone, so it can be used as a reference to help make smarter and better hiring decisions."
The ultimate goal is to be able to help every recruiting team in the world. Our AI for HR uses audio and video analysis, assessing personality attributes to gauge how fit an applicant would be for a position based on employer feedback, industry knowledge and scientifically backed data.
Daily Mail - Canadian startup uses AI to help companies hire new talent
A new startup is aiming to change the interview process as we know it - by using robots to find the best candidates. Canadian firm Knockri has built an AI that reads the facial expressions and eye movement of job seekers in videos they record during their applications. It uses these subtle tells to analyse whether you have the necessary skills and rates you on how well you fit the job - such as confidence or collaboration.
