"I am an indigenous woman, Nahuatl, from the Huasteca Potosina Hidalguense," says Gabriela Salas Cabrera in an interview with Mente Mujer. She contributed to making Nahuatl one of the languages available in Google Translate.
The young woman, originally from the municipality of Chapulhuacán, Hidalgo, studied Information Technology at the Technological University of Tula-Tepeji, Chapulhuacán campus. She is currently studying for a degree in mathematics at the Open and Distance University of Mexico (UNAD), where her interest in preserving indigenous languages arose.
"I was going to do a thesis topic for the Mathematics degree on the preservation of (indigenous) languages through artificial intelligence," and that's how Gabriela began to collect data related to the subject.
This led her to give a talk on Artificial Intelligence at Google Mexico, a company she joined as a collaborator. "I saw a section that said 'collaborate with Google' and I saw it said 'help me identify images, it's image processing and automatic translation,' and I said 'well, I have everything. So I sent it,'" emphasized Gabriela, who became the first indigenous woman to collaborate with the information company.
It's worth noting that, according to data from the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples, as of 2020, there were 1,651,958 Nahuatl speakers registered in Mexico. "The best payment for me is that the languages will be in technology, which was one of my dreams," emphasizes the data scientist who plans to develop software that includes all indigenous languages of Mexico, thus continuing her project to preserve these languages.
SCIENTIFIC PROMOTER
Although Gabriela's story went viral last June, her work as a promoter of science and technology, mainly with indigenous girls, began years ago. "I've been a mentor since 2020. I've been doing it for almost four years now.
I started mentoring in the municipalities of Hidalgo state, in Chapulhuacán, where I live. I started there with two or three girls. Later it became a bit more international because I had more girls in Guatemala and Colombia," explains Salas Cabrera, who has been recognized as the first indigenous woman in UNESCO's Information Technology area during its 'Women in Science for the World' initiative.
"Invite them not to get discouraged," is the message that the 28-year-old sends to girls and young women in Mexico. "I had to leave my village to achieve my dreams because I didn't have the opportunity, and I had to overcome my fear because I wanted to stay in my comfort zone, but we have to leave that zone aside and reach for our dreams."
And she makes a special call to indigenous girls to "break those traditions that we are destined to get married. We are not destined to get married; we are destined to do many things to shine, to encourage more people to continue studying, to continue pursuing their dreams."Check out this and other articles in this edition of Mente Mujer from El Heraldo de México in the next link.