Steps taken to improve education using AI at 2019 AI for Good Global Summit

Technovation led AI education discussions with industry, government and education leaders at the annual summit organized by the UN.

On May 28-31 Technovation hosted a full-day workshop with more than 300 educators, community practitioners, industry leaders and AI experts during the AI for Good Global Summit's Education Breakthrough Sessions. Organized by ITU, the United Nations specialized agency for information and communication technologies, the annual AI for Good Global Summit is the leading action-oriented, global & inclusive United Nations platform on AI.

Organized by Technovation, participants in the full-day AI education workshop and breakthrough sessions discussed and proposed new solutions to reach and engage youth and adults in immersive, hands-on AI programs through global communities, workplace programs, educational institutions, and the media.

AI education insights from the workshop and sessions

Based on their research and experiences, AI Education track participants revealed the following takeaways:

• Education must be an ongoing, lifelong journey to adapt and develop the skills needed to thrive in a world increasingly augmented by AI-powered technologies
• Steps must be taken to ensure everyone has a voice in the development of AI-powered technologies
• Standard 'listen, memorize, test, repeat' education models will no longer work; we must implement a new approach to teaching and learning to support cognition; one that is engaging, relevant and equitable
• Changing and improving tomorrow's world requires the ability to identify problems, generate creative solutions and work collaboratively across multi-cultural teams
• Local communities are best equipped to identify what they need to thrive; involve them in conversations and treat them as experts
• We're often most successful when working on something we're truly passionate about; empower communities, and individuals, to use technology to address the issues they care about
• Community change doesn't have to be expensive with strong grassroots activism and local partner advocates

Charting a course for 21st century learners of all ages

Participants developed two initiatives through the course of the workshop, which will be led by Technovation (formerly named Iridescent). The initiatives are:

1) Expand global AI education for families

The project, spearheaded by Technovation and run through its Technovation Families program, aims to engage 8,000 children and parents and 150 educations with 150,000 hours of training. The program will run with the support of Google.org, McGovern Foundation, AIDA, University of Malta, Power to Code Spain, School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and others. Building and expanding on the organization's inaugural year running its Technovation Families program, Technovation will expand its curriculum to cover new topics like ethics and partner with even more communities, families and students.

2) Deploy a global AI mentoring program with support from industry, education, and government champions

The project will introduce experiential, hands-on AI mentoring to help professionals be more open to learning AI. With the support of software company NVIDIA, Graz University of Technology in Austria, and others, the program aims to train mentors with 10,000 mentoring hours.

Leading up to and during the summit, Technovation secured more than $625,000 in funding to support the development of both projects with commitment from several collaborators and partners to successfully bring AI education into communities across the world.

Learn more about the results of the AI education workshop at the AI for Good Global Summit and watch the AI education workshop webcast from the summit. Contact us to get involved in these initiatives.