It’s been on our minds and likely on yours: How will AI reshape how our kids learn? At TBG we’ve been thinking about how to center human intelligence while exploring artificial intelligence. Starting this spring, we invite you to join us in trying something new: a curriculum and event sequence that uses AI and the underlying data science as learning tools for out-of-school-time education.
We listen intently to the questions about AI use in schools, and we hear the concerns about the distance that technology creates between our communities and one another. That’s why TBG is creating a collaborative model for out-of-school time programming that focuses on what data science and AI are, and on how to harness these for good in local communities. As we pilot these programs in both the San Francisco Bay Area and Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, we’re focused on helping our youth investigate, interrogate, and invent the future they want using data science and AI.
With decades of experience in creating space for equitable collaboration, and with a strong grounding in research on on identity, belonging, agency, and persistence, Techbridge Girls is centering our new offerings around the following questions::
- What happens when girls are the early adopters of new technologies profoundly changing our world?
- How can we use AI to foster deeper community and relationships, rather than watching as technology isolates our tweens and teens further?
- What happens when we use human-centered approaches to understand AI’s promise and peril?
- And finally, how do young women use new technologies to make a difference in their communities and across the world?
“I’ve spent years reminding people that: AI is not the oracle. We are. It is the brush, not the painter. The riverbed, not the river. The echo, not the origin.” Kim Carson, a former Techbridge Girls Board Member, has inspired us as she discusses the need for diverse voices in AI.
Techbridge Girls is preparing the next generation to use AI as a tool for exploration and to center them as creators shaping the trajectory of new technologies. We’re inviting you to join our experiment, follow along, encourage and inquire, and otherwise cheer us on. I’ll be joining the That Tech Pod podcast on December 23rd, and you can hear me talk more about our approach wherever you find your podcasts. And to follow our work live this spring, subscribe to the channels below and our newsletter, keep up with our new AI blogs , and watch where our girls take us this April and May.