Thank you to the hundreds of people that joined us last week in San Diego at our hosted events at this year’s ASU+GSV Summit, one of the world’s largest gatherings dedicated to technology in education, including its AI Show focused on AI learning for all.
MIT RAISE had a big presence on stage, in sessions, and in a gathering of our community members normally scattered across the country. The highlight was our special main-stage event featuring the MIT FutureMakers program. Past FutureMakers Create-a-Thon winners got a chance to show off their work, including 2021’s Team Code Blue, whose early stroke detection app became the first FutureMakers alumni project to secure a patent.
Hosted by RAISE co-principal investigator Eric Klopfer, the event included presentations, a panel discussion, and a surprise award for Dr. Taniya Misha, founder and CEO of FutureMakers partner SureStart.
Recent FutureMakers participants also got a chance to present their work to a packed room at the Student Showcase.
In quieter moments between sessions, parents of FutureMakers alumni brought up how close the teams of teens had grown, spending time together even years after their participation in the free six-week FutureMakers program had concluded. And as one parent said, “You’d never know this weekend is the first time they’ve met face to face.”
Long-time MIT RAISE U.S. collaborators at Day of AI hosted a session of their own, with Curriculum Designer Jorge Gallardo and Senior Advisor Jeff Riley walking attendees through the need for — and successes and expansion of — programs like Day of AI to get urgently needed introductory AI curricula into the hands of K12 teachers. (MIT RAISE’s global work on Day of AI curricula has now reached more than 1 million learners in over 170 countries). Riley also had the opportunity to demonstrate some of the pitfalls of AI when students are new to platforms. When he asked students in attendance for clear instructions on how he — “dressed as an AI” — should make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, he was ready for the ambiguity a respondent offered at Step 1, instructing Riley to “cut a slice of bread.”
FutureMakers and Day of AI are just two of MIT RAISE’s programs, surging alongside others like MIT App Inventor, responsible AI offerings for teachers and students like RAICA, and others. But with such a variety of attendees from across North America, ASU+GSV brought into focus some new perspectives taking hold in 2025. One at the top of many school administrators’ minds was use of AI not by students but by districts themselves. Many presenters discussed pilot projects taking tools like Google Gemini and training them on datasets owned and controlled by schools, hoping to speed the creation of new state standards-compliant lesson plans or to make better decisions to support certain populations of their students by tapping into district-level student assessment data — avoiding some of the privacy risks that may come with hiring consultants from outside the district.
A similar trend, which matches MIT RAISE’s thinking about AI education programs for adults, is the growth of interest by industry in partnerships with community colleges. It is now taken for granted that AI skills will be both a requirement for future early-career jobs but also something mid-career professionals may need training on, and many ASU+GSV sessions discussed the need for employers to partner with local adult education resources like community colleges.
Official RAISE events at ASU+GSV wrapped up with a reception for two dozen participants, bringing together RAISE, Day of AI, FutureMakers alumni, teachers, curriculum designers, district administrators, and others — an evening of camaraderie to look out at horizons, over San Diego Bay and at the future of education.