Maaz Rana

Business

A.I

Equity

ABOUT ME

Co-founder at Knockri

Entrepreneur, A.I Tech Enthusiast, Futurist, Advocate of Diversity and Inclusion.

Hey! My name is, Maaz Rana. I am currently helping change the way we choose the people we interview. I spend a lot of time pursuing my mission to help eliminate unconscious hiring bias, through establishing equitable hiring processes for large enterprises.

I've Co-founded Knockri, where we have built an artificial intelligence that analyzes peoples verbal and non-verbal communication skills through video, written and audio-based skills assessment tools, and can quantify whether someone is empathetic or confident for the early screening of job candidates.

Grounded in workforce-science and machine learning, Knockri is alleviating hair on fire problems, for talent acquisition in fortune 500 companies like, IBM.

I've contributed to various media outlets such as the CBC, and spoken at multiple Machine Learning, AI Ethics and HR Transformation conferences. I also love Nutella, so feel free to use that as an icebreaker!

Previously, I co-founded a successful Menswear fashion brand, which is ranked top 10 in Toronto and #1 based on customer reviews.

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."

Knockri in Forbes

Here's Why Canada Can Win the A.I. Race

"The importance of diverse data sets is hard to overstate for engineers. Knockri, one company I work with atÂ 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."

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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

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Knockri's COO Maaz Rana - The Change Leadership Conference 2019

Snippet from the Change Leadership conference 2019. Foundational skills make us and our careers future proof, says Maaz Rana, COO and Co-Founder at Knockri.

WATCH

HR Reporter: Using Ethical A.I. skills assessment tools for recruitment

Maaz Rana, co-founder and COO at Knockri talks with Canadian HR Reporter about the Knockri skills-assessment tool and how it can eliminate bias and boost diversity during recruiting process.

WATCH

How AI is changing the game for recruiting

Artificial intelligence is transforming the HR industry as more and more companies incorporate A.I. solutions into their talent acquisition process. A.I. tools have massive potential when it comes to recruiting, helping recruitment teams win the war for talent, ensuring the best fit, speeding up hiring and automating the process.

AI in Canada and Racism in Canada

Was great to be on Abrupt Future podcast and have an insightful conversation about racism in Canada, hiring and AI, and how AI technology can help to reduce biases.
Check out the full podcast.

LISTEN

How to adjust your recruiting process in the wake of COVID-19

During these times, the way an employer interacts with a candidate is crucial. At Knockri, we’re helping customers deliver remote assessments so they can move candidates along the funnel, a lot faster.

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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.

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MaRS: Knockri, an AI-driven assessment tool, started with a job hunt.

The startup’s co-founder, Jahanzaib Ansari, had been applying to jobs and not hearing back, until Maaz Rana, a friend — and Ansari’s eventual co-founder — suggested changing the name on his resume.

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HRD: How COVID-19 is accelerating hiring automation

“As COVID-19 has undoubtedly accelerated transformation, organisations are more than ever looking to hire talent remotely,” said Jahanzaib Ansari, co-founder and CEO of Knockri, which has been helping companies of all sizes screen and hire talent.

Knockri in CBC

How algorithmic bias can make an impact

"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."

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Knockri in Huffington Post - The power of AI.

A glimpse at HR's future

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.

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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.