6th-8th grade

AI Pioneers

In this 25-hour online program, students dive into training AI to understand language, fight COVID-19, drive independently, and more! As they learn to program AI in Python and RunDexter, they apply algorithms to real-world datasets, discuss AI ethics and careers, and build interactive web apps to deploy their machine learning models.

Outcomes

Program Highlights

Mentorship + Career Spotlights

Innovative & Hands-on Projects

Discussion of AI Ethics + Social Good

Cutting-edge AI Curriculum

Students

Who is it for?

Middle-School Students Grades 6-8

No prior programming or computer science background required! However an interest in learning how to write code (specifically Python) is appreciated.
We particularly encourage girls and students from underrepresented backgrounds to participate.

Is your student newer to programming?
Check out our AI Creators Course!

“Pioneers is my favorite program to teach.

I love the enthusiasm every student brings—they are all so excited to learn! I’ve watched students develop lifelong passions  for AI and gain the skills necessary to pursue those dreams. I love giving students that opportunity.”

– David McCowin, Instructor & Curriculum Manager, Yale Student

Each session will be divided into several modules, such as:

Interactive lessons, activities, and demonstrations introducing new technical concepts such as chatbots and recommendation systems.

Guided coding explorations in which students apply AI to real-world problems in python.

Discussions on the social impact of AI to develop students’ critical thinking skills.

Design challenges in which students create plans for ethical technologies.

Project work as students complete a multi-week AI for Social Good project.

Real world

Projects & Activities

Students learn how chatbots and voice assistants like Siri and Alexa are built, and then deploy their own version!

Real world

Projects & Activities

Students have critical discussions about biases in the workplace, and what careers of the future might look like.

Real world

Projects & Activities

Students understand the different technologies that go into self-driving cars (e.g. LIDAR, computer vision), and train their own models to navigate the road.

Real world

Projects & Activities

Students delve into the applications of AI in healthcare, including diagnosing medical conditions and tracing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Team

Instructors

Education

Harvard, Bachelor’s in Statistics and Computer Science

Teaching

Nabib is passionate about data science and interested in developing new ML algorithms for analysis and prediction. In particular, he’s interested in the application of computer vision, time-series forecasting, and simulation. He immensely enjoys mentoring and educating young students.

Nabib Ahmed

Instructor MS, MIT

Education

MIT, Master’s in Computer Science (HCI)
MIT, Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering

Teaching

Erica focuses on Human-Computer Interaction, computer vision, and image processing. She’s previously explored how we can use machine learning to enable creativity.

Erica Yuen

Instructor MS, MIT

Education

MIT, Master’s in Computer Science
MIT, Bachelor’s in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering,
Minor in Mechanical Engineering

Research

Kayla’s expertise lies in Robotics—she previously worked on autonomous driving at Cruise and robotics software at Vecna Robotics. She also researched methods for factory line operators to effectively work alongside robots.

Teaching

Kayla’s expertise lies in Robotics—she previously worked on autonomous driving at Cruise and robotics software at Vecna Robotics. She also researched methods for factory line operators to effectively work alongside robots.

Kayla Holman

Curriculum Developer, Instructor

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