NEWS

Ilia State University (ISU) is thrilled to announce the program ‘Artificial Intelligence Clubs in Schools of Georgia’ to educate and engage students in AI, funded by the U.S. Embassy in Georgia through the Democracy Commission Small Grants Program (DemCom) 2021. The purpose of the Democracy Commission Small Grants Program is to award grants for specific projects that support democracy, enhance the development of democratic institutions, and foster the education of civil society in Georgia. ISU will implement the program with the National Center for Teacher Professional Development (TPDC) to achieve the project objectives.

The curriculum adapted and offered in the project is based on an AI+Ethics curriculum developed for schools by the MIT Media Lab. School teachers will be trained through a ToT program on programming and running Artificial Intelligence Clubs in the selected host schools for high schoolers. Host schools and clubs having its own teachers’ network will be supported and guided by ISU mentors.

A total of 30 schools will be selected to participate in the project. Each school will receive complementary Arduino-based Gismo robots set 3 in total, developed according to the design of the MIT Media Lab. These robots will be used by AI Clubs for the practical implementation of AI algorithms. AI Clubs in schools will work for 6 months with the involvement of 10-20 students.

The project is managed by Nana Dikhaminjia, professor of Computer Engineering at Ilia State University, Director of the Center for Innovation and Technology. The project will be implemented with the active assistance and supervision of Fablab Iliauni with the involvement of ISU professors of Computer Engineering and Computer Science.

At the final stage of the project, an AI contest will be organized for the participating schools, to put in practice the knowledge that students gained in the field of artificial intelligence within the frames of the project.

Resources developed and translated within the frames of the project will be published at Fablab Iliauni website and will be accessible to any interested school.

The closing event of the project will be a 2-week AI day camp for 60 students.

Registration for the participating schools will be announced soon at Fablab Iliauni Facebook page https://bit.ly/3pfJlM9

2021