Engineering student creates AI program for schools with limited tech access - ASU News

Martin Mwangi Ndegwa did not need to convince Kenyan students that artificial intelligence was interesting. He says the curiosity was already there. Kids talked about AI, robotics and the technologies they glimpsed through phones, games and online searches. Ndegwa had returned home to Kenya with a plan to teach AI and data literacy as part of a community give-back project connected to his Mastercard Foundation scholarship. But once he began visiting schools, the project changed. Some of the schools he visited lacked reliable electricity. Some did not have computers. Internet access was limited. In parts of Kilifi County, where Ndegwa visited rural primary schools near the Arabuko Sokoke forest, even access to books was a challenge. For some communities, the nearest library services were more than 30 kilometers away. “You can do your best to plan everything,” says Ndegwa, a master’s student in data science, analytics and engineering in the School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University. “But when you go to the field, you have to listen to what the field requires.”