Anika Dugal is a senior at Old Bridge High School in New Jersey who is passionate about the applications of government, technology, and business in advancing social justice. She plans to pursue a career that is a mélange of these fields. 

Anika serves as the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Girls for Algorithmic Justice (GFAJ), the first algorithmic justice organization in the world to be completely led by female students, after learning that AI models can be implicitly discriminatory towards groups of people. She now leads a team of 120+ core volunteers and programs that have impacted 2000+ students. She also founded Bits & Bytes Journal, an award-winning Central New Jersey publication that explores the intersection of technology and human rights.

Anika serves as the 2023-24 National Data Director of the High School Democrats of America, a position that combines her love for tech and political action. She also serves as the Executive Director of Leaders Across the World, a civic engagement organization that has received the Diana Award, and grants from Taco Bell, T-Mobile, and Ashoka. Their Changemakers Across the World micro-grant finances projects across the globe, including tree planting in Kazakhstan and a sustainable menstruation drive in South Africa. Plus, she was elected to lead 7,000+ members as the State Vice President of Community Service for the New Jersey Future Business Leaders of America, through which she has raised over $25,000 for the March of Dimes . She is a member of the UNA-USA’s Human Rights Working Group. 

Anika works as an AI researcher at the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Ying Wu College of Computing, where she researches computer-vision-based remote-sighted assistance (RSA) technology for visually impaired individuals. 

She has been recognized as a Frederick Douglass & Susan B. Anthony Award recipient, FBLA National Champion in Computer Problem Solving, Harvard CS50x Puzzle Day Winner, National Cyber Scholar, and United Nations Ambassador. She has also been featured in Yahoo! China, and has been invited to speak at the White House and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Conference.

In her free time, you can find Anika reading (currently on Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari), learning about folk medicine, or hiking!

Please feel free to reach out any time at anika_dugal@yahoo.com or through LinkedIn.