Underserved high school students (grades 9 through 12) in Honolulu will be introduced to basic AI concepts under the Mark Cuban Foundation Artificial Intelligence (AI) Bootcamp program, hosted by the Odom Corporation. This will be the second event for Honolulu, and participants do not need any prior experience with computer science, programming, or robotics to apply and attend.
The Odom Corporation—the distributor of Coca Cola products in Hawaii—is one of 28+ host companies selected to host camps across the U.S. in Fall 2023.
The bootcamp will be held over four consecutive Saturdays starting on October 14 and ending on November 4. The bootcamp will run each Saturday from 8-12pm HST and if accepted, high school students must commit to attending all four sessions.
The student and parent application are now open.
With AI being a relevant topic on many news sources, students will learn what artificial intelligence is and is not, where they already interact with AI in their own lives, and the ethical implications of AI systems including but not limited to TikTok recommendations, smart home assistants, facial recognition, and self-driving cars to name a few. Participants will also learn how Large Language Models like ChatGPT are changing life as we know it by answering questions, telling original stories, and even writing computer code.
Students will benefit from volunteer corporate mentor instructors who are knowledgeable about AI, ML and data science and able to help students quickly understand material normally taught at a collegiate level. As part of the 4-hour curriculum, students will work with open source tools each day to build their own AI applications related to Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and Generative AI.
The Mark Cuban Foundation provides the bootcamp’s curriculum materials, trains corporate volunteer mentors, and recruits and scores applications for local student selected to attend camp. In addition, the Mark Cuban Foundation and The Odom Corporation work together to provide food, transportation, and access to laptops for students at no-cost throughout the duration of Bootcamp.
Founded by Mark Cuban in 2019, the AI Bootcamp initiative has hosted no-cost AI bootcamps for students across several US cities, including Dallas, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Atlantic City to name a few. The Mark Cuban Foundation has impacted 900+ students to date and has a goal to increase that number year over year.
Students interested in applying to the Mark Cuban Foundation AI Bootcamp should do so before Friday, September 8. To see our 2023 camp locations and to learn more about the Mark Cuban Foundation AI Bootcamps, please visit markcubanai.org/faq.