AI in Your Community

Communities are changing rapidly with the advancement of technology and the diversifying workforce, but rarely do those furthest from opportunity get to inform the design and decisions. The use of AI can be wrought with bias, assumptions, and support decisions that impact thousands. 

To ensure informed conversations and inclusive, public debate about the risks and benefits of AI, it is imperative to remove fear and misunderstanding of AI, and to replace it with curiosity and a sense of agency. The AI Family Challenge, the world’s largest AI-education program, brings high-quality STEM education to underserved students and their communities, with the goal to help them break the cycle of poverty, learn to apply new skills that emerging AI technologies require, and become innovators and leaders capable of solving real problems in their communities.

The world is changing dramatically as AI is integrated into our society and workforce. Characterized by exponential rates of discovery and adoption, this revolution brings together digital, physical, and biological systems, and like the revolutions of the steam engine, electricity, and computers that preceded it, Artificial Intelligence will not only change our lives but also our values. 

A shift of this magnitude offers an immense opportunity for many different groups to be part of this movement. And at the same time, it also threatens to accelerate existing income and access gaps (Frey & Osborne, 2015). Low income and under-resourced communities are already being left behind by the technology revolution (Google, 2016, Iridescent, 2018) and there is a risk that these communities will not be able to succeed in a technology dominant future.

Education organizations need to implement grass-roots programs that immediately help under-resourced communities change their attitudes towards AI and support the development of skills such as problem identification, problem-solving, and lifelong learning.

We deliver  high-quality STEM education programs to under-served children/families in the United States and around the world. Approximately 70% of the individuals we serve come from disadvantaged communities. They face barriers based upon gender, race and culture, and lower-economic status that limit their access to technology.

We’re interested in ecosystems like:

• Pittsburgh: an evolving post-industrial city booming with opportunity and many organizations interested in how AI can help solve new challenges they are facing. 

• Kansas City: In the middle of a rebirth that either could fuel positive change for largely under-served black and latinx families - or could cause even worse inequities and issues. Technology and community conversations have proven, thus far, to help highlight how to get this change right in Kansas City. The school system already is seeing these benefits and is seeking more communal change. 

• Raleigh: A tech and medicine hub in the heart of the southeast and an interesting juxtaposition of wealth and income disparities. Many community members not involved in the innovation are seeing the impacts in their changing city. Home to many different cultures/people from all over the world, it’s a ripe city to understand how AI can benefit all communities.

The AI Family Challenge (AIFC) is a free, hands-on AI education program that brings families, communities, and technology experts together to give everyone the chance to learn, play, and innovate with AI. Our model is designed to support under-served communities, and the curriculum is accessible - requiring simple, common materials. We provide an infrastructure to access stakeholders invested in students’ personal growth through exploration of STEM, and build educators’ capacity to implement complex, relevant AI curriculum and encourage a growth mindset and inquiry-based learning in the classroom. Most important, and what differentiates us in the STEM education field, is that we uniquely engage parents as co-learners in the program. 

In addition to the implementation of the AI Family Challenge, we will coordinate and lead community conversations, local business meetings, and gatherings and events that will help fuel the interest in the AIFC. These conversations will also air concerns and questions that community members have, even if they do not participate in the challenge.

AI, while widely used in some sectors and fields, is largely left out of the hands of those who are impacted by these tools and technologies. Our solution doesn’t just improve an existing model, it is defining a new space and design process that is human-centered and not dependent on wealth, status or class. This new application of existing technologies to serve populations who often are left out of the conversation is pivotal for a more equitable future. 

The key role that parents play in the AI Family Challenge is unique to our program. Participating parents learn with their child how to ask open-ended questions, encourage a growth mindset, and apply critical thinking to real world problems. In fact, 84% of parents said they were more likely to take action to improve their community after completing the program. Through the AI Family Challenge, both children and parents are more invested, engaged, and involved in both STEM learning and in making a difference in their communities.

The AI Family Challenge prepares people for a technology-enabled future and for a workforce that requires digital skills. Each child works with their parents to identify a problem in their community and build a solution using AI technology. Working through the curriculum together, they learn to:

1. Describe their community with data.

2. Identify problems in their community and begin to understand them by mapping out the causes that contribute to them.

3. Learn about machine learning by using image recognition to classify animals.

4. Use machine learning to guess what someone might like (Preference Guesser.)

5. Learn about natural language processing by creating a model that can guess someone’s emotions.

6. Revisit the problem they worked on in Lesson 2 and brainstorm how they could solve it using AI.

7. Plan their invention.

8. Take the first steps in creating their invention by making a simple prototype.

9. Create a pitch video to share their invention with the world.

10. Share their invention by competing to gain entry to the AI World Championship.

Iridescent’s mission is to empower the world’s underrepresented young people, especially girls, through technology and engineering to become innovators and leaders. Since our founding, 130,000+ students, parents, educators, and mentors have participated in our programs across 100+ countries. And, impact data from our work shows a mindset shift. A five-year longitudinal study funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) found that after our programs, 94% of students were more excited about doing challenging activities. 90% understood science and engineering better. 89% were more persistent and 88% had a better understanding of what jobs are available in those fields. Parents also demonstrated gains in this study. 94% of parents did more hands-on science projects with their children at home. 92% understood science and engineering better and 91% said they would encourage their child to pursue a STEM education or career.

Furthermore, impact data gathered from our first year running the AI Family Challenge found 91% of parents believe their child developed a sustained interest in AI. 89% of parents believe their child is capable of creating an AI model in the future and 84% of parents said they were more likely to take action to improve their community.

Both anecdotal evidence from interviews/participant feedback and the data show that our program successfully addresses the problem.

In its first year (2018), the AI Family Challenge AI-education program engaged ~7500 3rd-8th grade students and their parents across 13 countries. In our second year we aim to engage ~8000 students and parents. In five years we aim to serve ~70000.

Goals for Program Participants (children, parents, mentors)

Short-term (1 year) 

• Increased knowledge of AI, technology practices and perspectives

• Strengthened belief in own ability to learn new technologies

• Development of AI-based prototype that solves a meaningful, community problem

Long-term (5 years) 

• Participants and facilitators/mentors pursue further courses developing their skills and knowledge of new technologies

• Increased participation, voice, and influence in community

• Increased interest in technology jobs, confidence to pursue leadership opportunities in workplace and community

Organizational Goals

Our long-term goal is to have a robust infrastructure of partners and online program/assessment platforms that can support thousands of users and will require a minimal recurring maintenance cost for Iridescent. This strategy both aids in organizational sustainability and provides access to our program to children and families in rural and/or highly under-served areas where there is no presence of local engineering/tech hands-on support and mentorship.

Within five years, our goal is to scale the AI Family Challenge and Community Conversations to ~200 sites in under-served communities across the United States and around the world.

LONG-TERM IMPACT: We are seeking to develop long-term skills/traits in children (i.e. persistence, curiosity, creativity, etc.) that will take more than 20-hours of dosage. Continued access/exposure to STEM education and a community of support will be necessary to ensure long term gains. The lasting success of our initiative will be dependent on the on-going infrastructure and buy-in from civic leaders who prioritize efforts such as ours. 

WORKING IN NEW TERRITORY: As a still new program and having just completed our inaugural season of the AIFC, we are constantly assessing the program to make sure that we are (a) creating curriculum that reflects the latest developments in AI technology and (b) delivering that program in a way that is most impactful to program participants.

CULTURE AND DIVERSITY: Our team is inclusive, designs in a way that is human-centered, and operates with the assumption that cultural values and norms are key to how we create better AI solutions. But we know that there are barriers to access - both in the ideas of some about who deserves to have a voice and those who feel their voices don’t matter. Working to break those barriers will require a shift in mindset for many.

LONG-TERM IMPACT: We believe that invested adults are the key to the development of long-term skills/traits in children. Our focus on parental engagement is unique to the AIFC. Parents are co-learners with their children and together create a meaningful AI product/invention that serves their community. We engage corporate partners through employee skill-based volunteerism and work with community partners on the ground at our program sites. This network of support is critical to sustained program gains and benefits all involved.

WORKING IN NEW TERRITORY: We commissioned a survey to determine what the public thought about AI, interviewed 40 AI researchers (70% women) from across the world, and conducted 5 AI-debates connecting AI researchers with the public and 2 design hackathons helping AI researchers communicate their work to the public at AAAI’s and IJCAI’s annual conference. We also chaired the education track at the 2019 UN AI for Good Summit. We are constantly working to ensure that our programming reflects the most current state of knowledge in the field of AI. 

CULTURE AND DIVERSITY: The AIFC addresses culture and diversity challenges head-on. The program makes technology accessible to under-served families who would otherwise have limited access to STEM education outside of the classroom. Through the AIFC, they benefit from hands-on experience with AI tools and mentorship from industry experts. Technology becomes accessible, personal, and powerful, and program participants find themselves with greater voice and agency in their lives and their communities.

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Iridescent has a team of 25 and eduInnovation has a team of 4.

Since 2006, Iridescent has created innovative programming centered around building leadership and creative problem-solving skills in young people and adults through technology. In 2018, Iridescent launched and implemented the first project based, two-generation AI-education program - the AI Family Challenge - across 71 sites in 13 countries, engaging ~7500 under-resourced 3rd-8th grade students and their parents. The goal of the program was to bring high-quality learning opportunities to under-resourced and vulnerable communities so that they could build their sense of self-efficacy as innovators and leaders. Families were empowered to identify local problems in their communities, learn about AI-technologies and develop AI-based prototypes to address those problems. We have been successful in developing a program model that is fun and engaging for participants and adaptable to diverse cultures and have the infrastructure in place to continue to expand our AI Family Challenge program. 

eduInnovation has been focused on the future and how we can bring communities to the center of the conversation since its origination. We have worked with organizations like Iridescent to help make their educational dreams and goals a reality. We regularly hold community conversations focused on AI and the future in vastly different places and cities. Our partner organization, Getting Smart, is a nationally known media site that writes about these changes and convenes network leaders to make positive changes in our educational system. This work will inform our partnership with Iridescent.

Iridescent works with many partners across industry, academia, government, and communities in a variety of ways. For example:

• Industry partners support curriculum development & review, mentor participants, and fund our programs.

• Academia supports through  curriculum development & review.  

• Community partners, including nonprofits, schools, library systems, etc., serve as program facilitators.

eduInnovation works with schools, districts, learning organizations, and philanthropic groups across the United States to research, implement and advise on solutions.

Iridescent is a global tech education nonprofit with a mission to empower the world’s underrepresented young people, especially girls, through engineering and technology to become innovators and leaders. Our programs emphasize problem solving and innovation, encourage and facilitate parent involvement, and leverage STEM mentorship by connecting children with tech and engineering mentors and role models. We use a three-pronged approach to changing attitudes and building a sense of self-efficacy around technology for underrepresented groups. 

(1) We lead with a real-world community problem. Program participants are empowered to find a problem in their community and develop a real-world technological solution for it. 

(2) We engage the whole family. By studying 85,300 underserved parents and adults in a five-week, learning-by-doing STEM program, we have learned that parents must be engaged as active learners and facilitators of their child’s learning in STEM. 

(3) We invest in trust-building with community partners. Our model aligns with community needs and goals, plugs into existing community hubs, and runs successfully in diverse settings - rural, urban, different cultures and ethnicities.

Iridescent has been operating for 14 years. Operations in the early years were primarily funded by federal grants that allowed us to develop a scalable model. While our programs continue to benefit from the support of foundations/grants, we have shifted the majority of our focus to partnering with engineering and technology corporations. The value to a corporation is three-fold - public dissemination of their innovations, skill-based volunteering opportunities for employees, and building a diverse future pipeline. This synergistic partnership has enabled us to grow over the years and we anticipate it to continue doing so.

Program Sustainability: Based on our prior experience, we hypothesize that there are three models of program sustainability depending on the structural support present in a region:

• Underserved community in an urban area in a developed country - Timeline of 2 years to build local capacity in a community to sustain the program with the relevant skills, local social capital and local finances.

• Underserved community in an urban area in a developing country with <20% of the population living under $2/day - Timeline of 3-5 years to build local capacity and skills, and to secure funding from national organizations.

• Underserved community in an urban area in a developing country with >20% of the population living under $2/day - Timeline of 5+ years to drive significant, resilient learning gains and build local capacity for sustaining the program.

eduInnovation was started in 2010. The projects and campaigns are funded primarily through corporate and foundation grants.

We are passionate about educating and empowering the next generation of innovators to bring real and lasting change to their communities.

What is unique about our programming model is our belief in the power of partnerships. We don’t just “teach kids STEM and AI”. With buy-in from families, educators, corporate and  community partners, and funders, we create an environment of wraparound support that encourages community involvement, promotes long term gains, and facilitates scale and sustainability.

The AI Family Challenge engaged ~7500 3rd-8th grade students and their parents across 13 countries in our inaugural year. Our goal is to scale our program to reach far greater numbers of under-served children and families around the world. That requires introductions to key influencers and activists, strategic guidance, subject matter expertise and mentorship, and publicity via press and conferences. MIT Solve is uniquely positioned to help us meet these needs.

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UNHCR, UNESCO, FAWE, BRAC, NYC DOE, LAUSD, K-12 school districts

Currently our AI Family Challenge curriculum is focused on teaching participants about image and text recognition systems. Through the AI Innovations Prize, we would be able to create accessible curriculum that helps participants understand how voice recognition systems work and how these technologies could potentially be used to address problems in their community. 

In addition, we would use the funds to work with AI experts from industry and academia to develop:

• Case studies of what ethical constraints innovators consider when developing new technologies

• Examples of how best to incorporate and act on user feedback on the negative impact a technology has had 

• Innovative case studies of community problems that AI can be helpful for

All these resources would be made freely available and open online.

Translation of curriculum into Spanish to increase access by the broader community, and foster innovation

Travel scholarships to 2 AI Family Challenge mothers or grandmothers (and their participating families) to come to Silicon Valley for the AI World Championship and participate in multi-day technology tours, panels and leadership training events.

We have begun exploring areas of best fit for our programs to serve refugee populations and create sustainable solutions that advance opportunities for them in their host communities. Funding from this prize would enable us to connect with private and public sector partners, conduct needs assessments, and determine necessary curriculum and training adaptations to serve the unique needs of this population.

Engage between 20-50 employees from healthcare, life sciences, and biotech industries as mentors and content-creators for the AI Family Challenge.

$2000 scholarships to 12 finalist AI Family Challenge teams to take their prototype to the next level.