What is GAITEway?
GAITEway stands for Girls in Artificial Intelligence and Technology Education, where we want to lead the way for young girls to learn more about the scientific world. GAITEway is an official 501(c)(3) nonprofit outreach program. Our primary goal is to help middle school girls in low-income or underrepresented communities understand the true potential of the AI and CS fields and how they can affect the world’s vision of technology. We want to provide a supportive group of peers and mentors in order to make the participants feel comfortable in the learning environment. With GAITEway, we hope to boost the confidence in middle school girls so they can see what they are truly capable of. Also, inspiring young girls to pursue AI and CS in the future through GAITEway is one of our first steps to slowly close the gender gap in STEM which are primarily male-dominated.
This program will boost the confidence in middle school girls who often think that STEM fields are "boys' fields" and invite them to explore their own potential in this field. The stereotype of STEM being primarily a "boys' field" impacts the way girls see physics, computer science, or any other science topic, especially in high school and beyond. As high schoolers in our advanced physics course ourselves, we face the problem of being three out of eight girls in a room full of almost forty students. This ratio of male to female students needs to change and we believe GAITEway will guide more girls into higher level STEM fields like Artificial Intelligence!
This program will boost the confidence in middle school girls who often think that STEM fields are "boys' fields" and invite them to explore their own potential in this field. The stereotype of STEM being primarily a "boys' field" impacts the way girls see physics, computer science, or any other science topic, especially in high school and beyond. As high schoolers in our advanced physics course ourselves, we face the problem of being three out of eight girls in a room full of almost forty students. This ratio of male to female students needs to change and we believe GAITEway will guide more girls into higher level STEM fields like Artificial Intelligence!
Why AI?
Artificial intelligence is advancing at an extremely rapid pace. Scientists of the 21st century have made countless discoveries in this field, from self-driving cars of the future and computers that can see and recognize objects, to auto-correct and speech recognition that is used by people every day. Middle school students will have a chance to learn about these unique topics and how to implement them by programming their own artificial intelligence systems. They will also have the opportunity to discuss current controversial topics revolving around the field of AI such as what constitutes as AI and the ethics behind it.