Podcast: Using Artificial Intelligence to Solve Problems in Communities

Today’s episode is a little extra special — it is Getting Smart’s TWO HUNDREDTH episode of the podcast!

This week, the team will be hearing from Tara C. Chklovski, the CEO and founder of Iridescent. Tara grew up in a small town outside Delhi, India. Inspired by a tinkering father, Tara wanted to be an aerospace engineer. After obtaining a master’s degree at Boston University, Tara launched into a Ph.D. at USC. But the pull to help more girls experience powerful science, engineering, and technology education drew her away. In 2006, she launched the non-profit Iridescent, to create and deliver powerful STEM learning to empower underrepresented young people everywhere. Iridescent’s newest initiative, the AI Family Challenge, invites families to learn about Artificial Intelligence and use it to solve a problem in their community. Over 7,500 people from 13 countries participated in the first year of the program!

Join Tom and Tara to hear about the strides Iridescent is making for thousands of young people, about their incredible programs and initiatives, as well as Tara’s advice for educators on how they also can become more involved with AI and begin incorporating it into their teaching!

Key Takeaways:
[2:04] Tara speaks about her early education and what first drew her to STEM.
[4:02] What originally prompted Tara to launch Iridescent?
[5:48] How did Tara go about launching a global campaign for a new non-profit?
[9:06] About one of Iridescent’s programs, Technovation.
[10:03] About one of Iridescent’s initiatives, the AI Family Challenge.
[12:25] When did Tara begin to realize that AI was having profound implications in the world?
[14:07] Is it realistic for young adults and their parents to learn enough about AI in 15 weeks to deploy simple models and solve real community problems?
[15:36] Tara’s advice for educators in getting more involved with AI and incorporating it into their teaching.
[17:45] About the AI for Good Global Summit that Tara will be in attendance for!

Mentioned in This Episode:
Iridescent
AI Family Challenge
Technovation
Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
AI for Good Global Summit (May 28th-31st)

For more, see:

This post is a part of the Getting Smart Future of Work Campaign. The future of work will bring new challenges and cause us to shift how we think about jobs and employability — so what does this mean for teaching and learning? In our exploration of the #FutureOfWork, sponsored by eduInnovation and powered by Getting Smart, we dive into what’s happening, what’s coming and how schools might prepare. For more, follow #futureofwork and visit our Future of Work page.

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Tara Chklovski is the Founder and CEO of Iridescent. You can find her on Twitter at @TaraChk or through email at [email protected].

Feature image courtesy of https://iridescentlearning.org/.