AI for Kids (AI4K)™, meant for children aged between 10 to 12 years old, is a programme created by AI Singapore that aligns with our philosophy to “Grow Our Own Timber”.  After completing our public boot camps during the June school holidays in 2019, several Singapore primary schools approached us to help conduct additional AI4K boot camps in their schools.  

We step up to help the schools develop their capabilities and resources so that they will, in future, have the means and flexibility to teach AI for the students at their own pace.  

With Facebook coming in for the second time as official AI4K™ programme sponsor, we kicked off Phase II in late October 2019, with the aim to train MOE school teachers and their ICT facilitators to be certified as AI4K Instructors.   We further accept parent volunteers,  those intending to be and those who are already in the schools’ Parent Support Groups, to be trained – so that they can play a part to help the schools scale the outreach of the boot camps.

An AI for Everyone™ (Parent Volunteers Edition) workshop was held on 26th October 2019 to announce Phase II and invite parents to apply.   Four schools also announced their support during the workshop:

• Wellington primary
• Southview primary
• Yuneng primary
• St Gabriel primary

The first Train-the-Trainer (TTT) session was held in Yuneng Primary in early November with 15 teachers. Subsequent TTT sessions trained more teachers and parents who have applied from the workshop.  Facebook hosted the second TTT session at their South Beach Tower office.

AI4K™ Master Trainer – Darren TAN

Train-the-Trainers sessions

Facebook’s South Beach Tower office 

As part of their training, trainees conduct or facilitate at least one public AI4K™ boot camps organized by AI Singapore, before graduating.  We arranged 4 boot camps for Phase II – 9^th and 14^th December 2019, and 5^th and 12^th January 2020.   

Public Bootcamps at Singapore National Libraries

AI4K™ Phase II was completed at the end of March 2020, and today we have certified AI4K instructor teams across Singapore in 22 primary schools.

Trained Teachers or ICT trainers:
• Ai Tong School
• Canberra Primary
• Chongfu School
• Kong Hwa School
• Nan Chiau Primary
• Pei Chun Public School
• Poi Ching School
• Qihua Primary
• Southview Primary
• St. Gabriel Primary School
• Tao Nan School
• Temasek Primary
• Waterway Primary
• Wellington Primary
• Yuneng Primary

Trained Parent Volunteers and/or Parent Support Groups:
• Frontier Primary School
• Jiemin Primary Ximin Primary
• Nanyang Primary
• Princess Elizabeth Primary
• Red Swastika School
• Tanjong Katong Primary

We sincerely acknowledge the tremendous support from all the schools and trainees in making AI4K™ Phase II a success, and especially our programme sponsor Facebook.

Thank you!

Some comments from the graduated participants:

“It was an eye opening experience to peek into the world of AI from the student’s point of view. Sessions were great fun and it gave me the opportunity to be a part of an amazing team to impart AI knowledge to the kids.”

Sri Rathi Priya
ICT Trainer, Yuneng Primary school
“The AI4K Bootcamp and the Train-the-trainer (TTT) course were great experiences for me. As a participant of the TTT course, I am thrilled for the opportunity to visit Facebook corporate office at South Beach Tower. Thanks for this arrangement! As a facilitator to the AI4K Bootcamp on 7/12, it’s heartening to see excitable kids having fun while contributing to Machine Learning — training the computer to recognise their face/hand gestures.”

Chang Cheng Liang
Teacher, Poi Ching school
“The children was having great time during the boot camp. They participated actively and excitedly throughout the camp. I am truly impressed with their enthusiasm and overwhelming response. Their interest and exposure in AI is unbelievable high. This is a very good start and we are looking forward for AISG to conduct more camp for student with different level of challenges.”
“Once again, thank you AISG for the effort in kick start this exposure to children. “

Ooi Hoey Yee
Parent support group
“As an Engineer with many years of experience, training the machine is not really critical for me. This program is a fun way of learning and for me not just teaching it was learning with kids. The kids knowledge, interest and their imagination power is really mesmerizing.”
“The kids, our future is really bright!”

Senthilkumar
Parent volunteer
“The course was comprehensive and intense. It equipped me with the necessary knowledge to share about AI in school Following up on the course, I had implemented an AI curriculum for the Robotics CCA pupils and the pupils enjoyed the sessions very much, especially when they tried the machine learning website. I am sure they will go on to find out mroe about AI in the future.”

Tan Weihan
Teacher, Canberra Primary
“It was a wonderful experience to teach kids about AI. They seemed enjoy the hands-On activities through the session at AI4K Bootcamp. It is indeed a great platform to give a kick start to young kids to build the basic foundation of AI.”
“Thanks to AI4K team.”

Drishti
Parent support group
“I really enjoy the TTT session as it is very educational and engaging with the concept of AI explained to me very clearly and most importantly, I get to play a part in leading the AI4K bootcamp and contributing to the development of young talents in AI.”

Wu Fan
Parent support group
“Amazing introductory AI4K course for both beginners and person like myself who was totally new to AI. An indeed informative and easy to understand module which allowed me to know more about AI and its mechanisms. I loved how Trainer Darren made use of engaging videos, games and activities to make the course so lively, children will love them! I thoroughly enjoyed it and the course content was exactly what I was looking for to fully maximize on my learning.”

Agnes Poon
Parent support group
“The workshop provided clear visuals and hands-on experiences which helped us to gain a deeper appreciation of the fundamentals of AI.”

Ernest Choon
Head of Department (ICT), Temasek Primary