During the summer of 2023, MIT RAISE is offering its third annual MIT FutureMakers program, in which under-represented students in STEM from middle-school, high-school to undergraduate college-level, will have the opportunity to learn about AI and computational action in a hack-a-thon format.

FutureMakers is a cohort-based collaborative learning model that emphasizes computational action technical skill development for early talent pipeline development, and entrepreneurial thinking. Throughout the MIT FutureMakers program, participants:

•Develop AI, applied machine learning and technical prototype development skills,

•Develop teamwork and leadership skills,

•Learn about foundational AI concepts and the ethical considerations in AI development,

•Familiarize themselves with the language, libraries, and platforms related to software and ML development, and hands-on develop prototypes and mobile and webapps  that concretize these learnings. Students us available coding toolkits to do this such as MIT App Inventor and Python with industry ML tools (e.g. Tensorflow, etc.)

•Learn from a number of webinars on how professionals are using AI/ML, as well as early career building skills (communication, resume development, etc)

The program spans about six (6) weeks, consisting of two phases:

•A training phase (~4 weeks) consisting of cohort-based learning from a curated interest-led curriculum, with regular mentoring by proximate mentors, and a Create-a-thon phase (2 weeks) consisting of teams developing AI based solutions to real-world problems, working in the same cohorts, once again guided by mentors. This culminates in a pitch competition.

Participants will also attend seminars on career skills; engage in formal and informal peer-networking; and attend technical talks by AI industry professionals. All interactions will be hosted online using a digital platform and video-conferencing.