Gen AI

Globally, Generation Z are not being taught the digital literacy skills required to thrive in the future workforce. Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, data science and IoT over the next decade will require 60% of today’s youth to be functioning at a “Digital Worker” level. Currently, upwards of 50% of young populations internationally are not. At GenAI we are addressing this disparity creating what we like to call Lego for the 21st century: a DIY Artificial Intelligence robot kit, with an interactive educational learning experience to boot. We believe in democratising AI and data science technologies while empowering Generation Z to solve global problems – all in a cute, cost-effective and powerful package. Being at an inflection point in the implementation of AI currently, we believe that communities and economies that are able to participate in leveraging AI have the opportunity to reduce economic, racial and gender inequality at scale.

Globally, Generation Z are not being taught the digital literacy skills required to thrive in the future workforce. Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, data science and IoT over the next decade will require 60% of today’s youth to be functioning at a “Digital Worker” level according to the Foundation-for-Young-Australians and the British-Digital-Taskforce. Currently, upwards of 50% of young populations internationally are not. A key stakeholder in preparing this demographic is education. However, implementing these new technologies into curriculum remain difficult/near-impossible due to the lack of centralized information and its steep learning curves. In marginalized and low-income communities, the expensive nature of this technology also halts implementation, thus deepening the digital divide. These communities have equipment that is on average 5-10 years outdated, causing their digital literacy to be significantly lower – especially amongst women, according to the WEB Foundation. On a macro level, communities and economies that are not able to participate in leveraging AI will suffer “exponentially” due to worsening economic, racial, gender and even environmental inequality according to the World-Economic Forum. Being at an inflection point in the implementation of AI currently, Gen AI is addressing this disparity in knowledge and skillsets.  

Our aim is to utilise our AI kits and programs to serve Generation Z students, as well as their schools and larger communities. 

At the front-end user level, our solution will have the ability to meaningfully contribute to this demographic’s soft and technical skills by educating them about AI, data science, and entrepreneurship concepts through our kits and workshop tours. Students involved with our programs will be able to explore an emerging industry while being empowered to apply their newfound skills in order to resolve issues within their communities. 

On the next tier, our solution serves teachers and schools through curriculum development packages and personal development workshops surrounding this content. Through this, Gen AI is able to not only impact how effectively our kits are used in the improvement of student learning, but also the long-term technical depth of school curricula. 

In this way, the wider community surrounding the regional and metropolitan areas we work in can be served. With our kits we see overall digital literacy rates and employability improving drastically in the long term. Additionally, the AI-based solutions designed by students through our programs will also have the potential to further resolve the socioeconomic divide within these communities. 

With Gen AI kits, we have created what we like to call Lego for the 21st century: a DIY Artificial Intelligence robot kit, with an interactive educational learning experience to boot. We believe in democratising AI and data science technologies while empowering Generation Z to solve global problems – all in a cute, cost-effective and powerful package.

Made with educators and young people’s needs in mind, the kit itself comes with an assortment of IoT and 3D printed pieces that come together to form your very own AI-powered robot. Its core physical components can be adapted for new use-cases, meaning that we will continue developing unique, interactive add-on options. Its hardware will be able to seamlessly integrate with AI APIs development by TechFlow and our partners that will provide students with resources to design AI-based solutions specific to their community’s needs. 

Users will be able to utilise our online platform which centralises all the critical conceptual information about AI and data science into accessible, interactive modules. For example, students can learn to build their own snapchat filter based on image recognition AI on Watson Studio and deploy the model in their robot using Node-RED. Students can combine the technical skills they acquire through these modules with the soft skills taught in a workshop setting to enable them to not only maximise their employability, but to also begin resolving local and global issues through applying these technologies. To encourage innovation and create continued engagement with the community, every few months, Gen AI will work with our partners to release innovation competitions that can provide young people with the platform to do so. 

In particular, our education component is designed to emphasise the technical skills of data fluency and basic artificial intelligence programming, as well as the soft skills of design thinking, presentation, and ethical decision making. 

This kit and the training modules have been created to be accessible for anyone around the world with an internet connection and a basic computer. The workshops structure is scalable  and flexible to the needs of any community around the world, allowing Gen AI to arm the future generation with the enterprise, digital skills and ethical judgement to harness technology  and make a positive impact in the world.

1.Cost effective – Our kits are half as much as the next cheapest kit on the market at $100AUD, ensuring accessibility. This is mainly because we have opted to use a Raspberry Pi Zero WH which is vastly cheaper than other Raspberry Pi models but still offers great functionality. Further, users can can create original procedures for the robot using a greater variety of cognitive APIs like Watson, Azure Cognitive Services and Google Cloud Vision. 

2.Gen AI kits are made with beginners and educators in mind – Kits from Google and IBM are difficult to learn with as they are made for developers. Our kits are usable right out of the box, as we configure the SD card image and visual interface from Node-RED beforehand.

3.We facilitate learning – We are complementing our kits by creating the first central hub of information surrounding data science and AI online.  

4.Unlike our competitors, Gen AI isn’t simply a product company – We’re an organisation that actively engages with young people in multiple contexts to effectively teach digital skills using the AI kit. We want to coordinate workshops, run competitions, hold events and hackathons internationally in a bid to get students excited about this new technology and the opportunity it presents.

5.Gen AI kits are scalable and modifiable – We want to adapt our kits to be used as a retraining tool in businesses and for university students wanting to upskill in the near future.

We ensured the technology in this kit was both cheap and scalable for it to be accessible to as many as possible and so that it could evolve with a user’s skillset.

The core technology is summarised below:

Hardware: 

• Raspberry Pi Zero WH, 5MP Raspberry Pi camera, Raspberry Pi zero camera cable, Bluetooth speakers, USB microphone, servo motor, jumper wires, LED and a micro-USB-to-USB dongle.

Software (currently)

• Since our kit includes Raspberry Pi Zero WH, the Node-RED visual programming environment is available to develop custom handling without coding.
•  In order to use AI APIs, users sign-up to the platform and create API instances from services such as IBM Watson (for example, text to speech and image recognition services). Then the API key is configured amongst Node-RED blocks to utilise the API (see attached example).
• AI Training takes place on Watson Studio. Then the API key is again applied to Node-RED blocks.
• SD Card flashed with our preconfigured image.

Online:

• Our website, www.techflow.co, will contain instructional videos and additional information. Anyone can sign up and view the videos, however, it will be optimised for buyers of the kit. 

Young people are required to function at a “Digital Worker” level to thrive in the future. This requires them to have the following skillsets:

• Develop adaptive mindset that can problem solve and creatively apply new technology.
• Competency in various aspects of creating, thinking about, and managing AI systems.
• Able to evaluate, configure and use complex digital systems such as Node-RED and IBM Watson Studio.
• Understand data capture, management and ethics.
• Robust enterprise skills to activate and communicate ideas and solutions
• Develop basic skillsets in Internet of Things (IoT).

Our AI Kits do so in the Theory of Change document that is attached in this answer.

Currently:

1000 students in our AI & Business workshop tour to the outback.

In one year:

10,000 young people from around Australia and surrounding South Pacific Islands. Focus demographics will include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, females, and unemployed youth.

In five years:

100,000 to 1 million around the world depending on assistance received and networks created.

One year:

1. Organise workshops at schools across rural and metropolitan communities in Australia. Deploy across 10 districts in each state. Additionally, set up programs to run during school holidays.
2. Finalise content taught in workshops and online contexts.
3. Creating content for online platform in video and written format.
4. Make kit sellable as standalone product – ensure shipping is available and successful in Oceania region. Find trustworthy supplier.
5. Embark on an overseas workshop tour with partner organisation.  
6. Forming partnerships with STEM brands to run workshops.

Five years:

1. Completed all-in-one online platform enabling users to train and deploy AIs.
2. Developed five AI APIs to be used with kit. Have APIs used by young people to solve local community problems.
3. Have our tools be used as part of curriculum nationally and internationally. Be in a position to issue students who successfully completed workshops with a recognized work experience certificates.
4. Run nationwide competitions like First Lego League, with prizes that include potential work experience opportunities at partner firms.
5. Delivered workshops in all major target geographies across the world.
6. Free subscription based online learning service that interacts with purchased kits.
7. Be contracted to use kits as a retraining tool for individuals in businesses and in universities. 

First year:

• Establishing Gen AI as a credible and trusted brand.
• Ensuring parents, educators and those in low-income communities understand why digital skills are important in order for adoption of kits to be supported and effectively administered.
• Developing an affordable learning package for people of all walks of life with a price suited for market.
• Scalability of kit - finding a trusted manufacturer which can aid us in keeping production costs of production low while maintaining quality.
• Scalability of workshops - adequately on-boarding and training facilitators and managers to autonomously run workshops across nation.

Five years:

• Not having adequate funding and/or partnerships to undertake overseas tours.
• Have workshops run at high standard autonomously.
• Development of APIs requires intensive research and development in order to function. The funding or plausibility for such projects is not be possible without collaboration with other companies.
• Ongoing software development needed for the online learning system as well as customizing the learning approach and resources for each country we work with.

• Funding our expansions: Building capital from doing workshops and selling kits with the current functionality and then rolling out updates as time and funds permit. This capital will be used to hire developers to create the platform.
• Developing APIs: Partnering with and/or paying firms in the data science and AI space to develop APIs for use in regional areas. 

• Creating effective content: Coordinating and aligning the content we create with business, educational and STEM organisations to ensure it is relevant and transferable.
• Suppliers: Securing partnerships with manufacturers in Asia through the Australia China Innovation Centre.
• Effective hiring: Seeking guidance from our networks to effectively develop company structure and maintaining. Also, ensuring we are accessing pools of talented young people from our networks and competitions around Australia.
• Establishing brand credibility: Firstly, by running workshops that actually impact our users. Secondly, utilising online marketing, keynote speaking and hosting community events to establish why young people need to develop digital skillsets in various communities. 

GenAI has three full-time employees (i.e. spend a substantial amount of time on developing this product outside of university hours). This includes a chief executive officer, a chief development officer and chief information officer. Along with this, we contract ten facilitators across Australia – seven of which are a part of GenZ.

The team behind our solution is aligned directly with our overall goal for its impact. Youth empowerment, employability, promoting workforce diversity, entrepreneurial education and technological exposure are areas in which the members of our core team have actively created impact.

Within the past five years, we have worked to establish a nationwide tech community for teens (the original Techflow media group) which involved running the largest youth change festival for Indigenous Australians, and establishing workshop series in STEM and entrepreneurship. Our CIO has directed ChangeMakeHer Australia, Australia’s only youth-led and founded enterprise levelling the playing field for young women the technology and business sphere, as well as founding an AI-based wearable tech solution to reduce mortality rates at beaches. Between the three core team members, we have the ability to work remotely across both Australia and the USA because of our university locations.

Additionally, as members of Generation Z, we are well positioned to understand the needs of our front-end users, a unique advantage in an emerging technology company. 

Fiftysix Creations and BOP Industries: We are implementing Gen AI kits into the workshops that both educational organisation run. Alongside Fiftysix Creations, we hold workshops in which the AI and data science content we teach is applied to business contexts. Participants learn and build the AI kit which is followed by them pitching their own social change idea using these technologies. Similarly, our kits are being used by BOP industries in their tech workshops that they conduct in schools.

 Advance Queensland: A government organisation that has provided funding for two workshop tours to regional and marginalised communities in Queensland.

Fishburners: A co-working space that has given us special access to the technologists and business owners in the area. We liaise with these individuals to develop both hardware and software aspects of our kit in the best manner.

Australia China Innovation Centre (ACIC): Providing us with opportunities to physically access and make connections with the Chinese community of manufacturers and developers. Further, they are helping develop our targeted, effective and sustainable Chinese market entry strategy in the future.

Our target market is GenZ, however their parents, teachers and government officials will be providing us with funds to undertake our work. Thus, our key activities to obtain revenue revolve around education and marketing the importance of digital skills (to develop the need in parents, teachers and government officials) and then, having them commit to running workshops and buying kits – running the workshop itself provides GenZ with digital skills but to access the young people we must effectively develop relationships with educational institutions, governments and parents. The key resources required to effectively educate these buying-demographics involve exhibiting and speaking at events that congregate these individuals. In addition to this, we will seek access to these networks through participating in business and education programs for start-ups. We will also aim to develop the credibility of our organisation by creating free, valuable content for these demographics on social media such as LinkedIn, and leveraging our contacts in media to gain the support of respected personalities. We will also aim to partner with private and government initiatives. Currently our cost structure is solely dependent on variable costs due to our access to co-working spaces and low labour costs into the foreseeable future. As students, our core team does not require salaries and we are committed to using all profits in the short term to advance our solution to the enterprise stage. As our product grows, funds will be allocated towards hiring, salaries and office space as needed.

Our revenue model centres around a fee for service that balances work in underprivileged and privileged communities.

In the next year, revenue will be used to support selling kits, covering costs for workshops and running our online platform. Revenue will be obtained through the sale of kits as well as conducting workshops at schools and events across Australia. Any residual profit will then be shifted to long term projects. In this short term timeframe, we will not have the means to cover travel, accommodation, facilitator and related costs to run workshops in regional areas. Thus, efforts will be made to secure grants, non-equity funding and competition prizes to fully support these courses of action. 

However, within two to three years, we will leverage our experience to provide paid services that can fully finance our long-term initiatives. For example, we wish to use our experience with youth and technology to provide a range of professional consultancy services to multiple clients such as the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). Further, we will obtain advertising revenue from our online platform by partnering with companies that wish to advertise to our GenZ audience. Moreover, our kits and facilitators will be employed as retraining methods for businesses. These funds will be used to cover costs for custom API creation and to fully develop our online platform to meet our goals - they will then be added to our product offering to generate further profit. Note: Sponsorship will enable us to develop these components quicker.

We are at an inflection point in the way AI will be integrated into the workforces of the future, and if we leave it too late, millions will be left even further than what they once were. We believe the SOLVE community can help us address the scale and time-sensitivity in the following ways:

·      Everything we do is about hacking together the lowest-price, highest quality program. The community of Brain Trusts, the yearlong mentorship program and SOLVE technologists will enable us to do so. 

·      The diversity of SOLVE community can help us in addressing differing attitudes and visions for AI across countries and regions and find the most effective way to run workshops and implement our kits.

·      Exposure: media engagements with leading brands will set the credibility of our organisation on a global scale and enable us to do the work with more young people quicker.

In essence, SOLVE will enable us to build the partnerships needed to accelerate our work, validate our impact and business model, and scale our solution. Gen AI is centred entirely for people in restricted environments. This matches the ethos of the Solve challenge.

·      Atlassian: To provide technical advisory and funding. 

·    World Economic Forum: Working with the “Centres for the Fourth Industrial Revolution” committee to educate target demographics.

·    Open API: Forms a partner for our API development as they share similar beliefs and goals to us.

Government specific programs: For example, the USAFs resources for the five SMART African nations.

 Partners to help fund workshops and overseas programs: Cisco, Blakely Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, Oxfam.

The AI Innovations Prize would provide a unique opportunity for us to develop both the depth and breadth of our inherently AI-based solution. We aim to partner with leading AI and data science firms to aid the research and development of our own functioning AI APIs that can be used in conjunction with the hardware onboard the kit. This process will involve researching the needs of the communities that we are looking to support and corroborating these needs with the APIs we develop. For example, for rural communities that focus on agriculture, the use-case for the API would involve agriculture-related functions that will enable students in our programs to formulate AI-based solutions for their own communities using the kits. Additionally, we will use funding to develop an accessible online platform that enables users to train their own AI on the TechFlow platform.

We are also aware of the ethical responsibility that arises with such an extensive use of AI technology and data collection. A part of the Prize will be allocated to developing AI and data ethics principles and internal data governance infrastructure to ensure transparency, safety, and value creation surrounding each technology asset. 

Funding would go towards an “AI & Business” workshop tour to educate and upskill marginalised groups along the east coast of Queensland, Australia. These groups include:

·      Unemployed Youth: Usually clustered around low-income areas, find it difficult to step back into workforce and upskill.

·      Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders: Currently, only 3.8% of this group enrol in university and job opportunities remain few and far in between within their localities.

·      Women in regional, low-income communities: Have lowest digital literacy rates among regional communities.

To do so, funding will cover:

·      Travel & Accommodation.

·      Workshop materials such as AI kits to provide community patrons and leaders with.

·      Developing online platform instructional videos.

·      Develop a portal on our online platform to continually communicate and work with communities we engage with into the future.

What we will do:

·      Provide interactive and practical use-cases of technology and how it will affect their community.

·      Marginalised groups need more intensive support and, as such we will deliver face-to-face workshops within schools, libraries and council environments.

·      Training educators and community leaders to use these technologies since they are the bedrock of civil society, enabling social action, mutuality, advocacy and supporting the social fabric of communities.

This will achieve the following outcomes:

·      More effective and inclusive community groups, with more confident and experienced young people and with access to the tools and information they need.

·      Empower all target groups to use skills in work and/or to become entrepreneurs.

We aim to combat the global gender divide with Gen AI by focusing on the issue of gender inequality in the STEM sector, and the fact that AI, as an emerging technology, has the potential to become a bridge. Through our team’s prior experience in the development of programs that work to inspire young women to enter STEM and entrepreneurship fields, we have seen firsthand the effect curated educational experiences can have on students’ future career choices and interest in these fields.

We would allocate the Prize to develop a focused “AI & Business” workshop tour aimed at educating and upskilling young people of diverse backgrounds across Australia, with specific focus on regional and low-income communities. It is the women in these communities that are currently at the highest risk of not being digitally literate, and we see that a targeted program such as this one could increase student employability and ignite a passion for STEM and AI in young women who previously hadn’t been exposed to it. 

The funding will cover not only travel, accommodation and resources, but also the development of an interactive platform with a portal than can create long-term community engagement and potential mentor relationships with inspiring women in tech we are able to connect students with. Personal Development training for educators and community leaders would work to arm each community with the technological knowledge to help students continue to explore technology and entrepreneurship even after the workshop tour.

As a result of our extensive use of data collection through the process of research and development for APIs, we are acutely  aware of the ethical responsibility that arises. A large part of the Prize will be allocated to developing AI and data ethics principles and internal data governance infrastructure to ensure transparency, safety, and value creation surrounding each technology asset. These processes will involve the establishment of processes such as anonymisation of data, robust complaints handling processes for any  data collated around students and schools, firewalls, and effective consent  procedures. 

We would also like to utilise the Prize for the development of an online hub through the TechFlow  platform, where students can ask questions to mentors about entering the AI and STEM sectors. Additionally, we would like to conduct regional workshop tours, and develop APIs specific to rural and low-income communities, to provide focused support to those who could most benefit from it. The Prize will be instrumental in allowing us to do each of these things. 

Funding would go towards an “AI & Business” workshop tour to educate and upskill young people in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. These groups include:

·      Unemployed Youth: Usually clustered around low-income areas, find it difficult to step back into workforce and upskill.

·      Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders: Currently, only 3.8% of this group enrol in university and job opportunities remain few and far in between within their localities.

·      Women in regional, low-income communities: Have lowest digital literacy rates among regional communities.

To do so, funding will cover:

·      Travel & Accommodation.

·      Workshop materials such as AI kits to provide community patrons and leaders with.

·      Developing online platform instructional videos.

·      Develop a portal on our online platform to continually communicate and work with communities we engage with into the future.

What we will do:

·      Provide interactive and practical use-cases of technology and how it will affect their community.

·      Marginalised groups need more intensive support and, as such we will deliver face-to-face workshops within schools, libraries and council environments.

·      Training educators and community leaders to use these technologies since they are the bedrock of civil society, enabling social action, mutuality, advocacy and supporting the social fabric of communities.

This will achieve the following outcomes:

·      More effective and inclusive community groups, with more confident and experienced young people and with access to the tools and information they need.

·      Empower all target groups to use skills in work and/or to become entrepreneurs.