The Mavs Foundation and Mark Cuban Foundation are teaming up this month to teach 25 area high school students the fundamentals behind Artificial Intelligence.
Part one of the free three-part course was held last Saturday at the Mavericks’ headquarters and coincided with Mark Cuban AI Bootcamps around the U.S. The remaining sessions will take place over the next two Saturdays.
With Artificial Intelligence becoming more widely accessible, this course offers tech-interested students from varying backgrounds a unique opportunity to learn more about the uses and ethical implications of AI systems and how to apply these techniques in everyday life.
Members of the Mavericks front office and a handful of UT Dallas students involved in the Association of Computer Machinery are serving as mentors to the Mavs’ cohort.
“AI is the future,” said Adam Wermuth, senior digital manager for the Dallas Mavericks. “It can help with problems we didn’t think could be solved. It’s a personal system in your pocket. If you need it, you can use it to create a recipe with the ingredients in your refrigerator, all the way up to finding an error in some code.
“Kids are growing up with it today— I have to learn it on the fly like it’s brand new— but they get to grow up with it, and it’s important for their futures because it can change the trajectory of what they do.”
To encourage exploration, participants were divided into groups based on their interest in healthcare, arts and entertainment, business and entrepreneurship, computer science, sports science, or education and career readiness.
Townview School of Science and Engineering student Darius Obasi, for example, is interested in neuroscience-based careers and was astounded by some of the lesser-known AI systems introduced in session one that specialize in recognizing physical objects and even dance moves.
Future aerospace engineer and current junior at Harmony Science Academy, Fatimah Qasin, discovered the Mark Cuban AI Bootcamp when her computer science teacher encouraged her to apply.
“I feel like AI can help a lot,” said Qasin. “There are so many things we can’t do yet, especially in space, so I think AI can help with some of the outer anomalies, ways to get back to Earth safely without crashing, and other problems.”
Ezekiel Molina of W.H. Adamson High School is excited to delve deeper into his passion for technology, saying, “I want to do something special in the future. Right now, I want to do something like Augmented Reality vision glasses, and I think AI could help with that.”
High school sophomore Araceli Esquibel isn’t certain about what career she’d like to pursue just yet but is excited to explore new paths with AI.
“I do like computers, and I really like game design,” said Esquibel. “That’s part of why I chose art [as my area of interest in the AI Bootcamp]— I thought it would be a good idea to learn how AI can help me with art. So far, AI has been damaging art because people use it to create things that provide unfair advantages, so I am thinking about how it can help artists in a good way.”
Under the mentorship of Mavs staff and UTD students like data science major Ali Ghorbani and Advay Chandramouli, a computer science and cognitive science dual major, students are encouraged to inspect the realm of AI possibilities through a wide lens.
Day one explored how to generate results with thorough prompting, exposed students to lesser-known AI systems, and introduced students to their capstone project rubric.
Throughout the remaining two sessions, students will explore functions specific to their identified areas of interest and work in small groups to practically apply their newfound knowledge.
To learn more about the Mark Cuban Foundation’s AI Bootcamps, visit markcubanai.org.
Share and comment