Unlocking creativity: a workshop on artificial intelligence
As the AI Summit unfolded in London, the need for diverse voices in the field has become more evident than ever.
The Care Beyond Skin Hackathon, hosted by Teens in AI and Beiersdorf in November 2023, aimed to support and inspire the next generation of budding leaders in Birmingham, giving opportunities to those from underserved and marginalised communities.
As a UX consultant at Creative CX, I led a three-hour Design Thinking workshop as part of the event, emphasising the importance of nurturing a curious and inquisitive mindset, enabling a deeper dive into problems to ensure complete understanding, and ensuring customer-driven innovation.
These transferable skills are invaluable and can be applied throughout the entire experimentation process.
Problem understanding and potential solutions
Enthusiastic teams of 12-18 year olds competed to design and prototype AI-based solutions to problems ranging from disease prevention to domestic violence.
Feasibility and adherence to ethics were key considerations throughout the project, and the design thinking framework encouraged thoughtful ideas, productive discussions, and effective solutions.
Rising to the challenge
The main challenge for teams was narrowing down their ideas by clearly defining their problem and ensuring a good understanding of the issue before jumping to solutions too early.
Succinct, accurate, and well-defined problem statements were vital, and overall this was a good learning many took away from the session.
This is something we also see in the professional world, and it is certainly an important learning for companies and teams to ensure an accurate and thorough understanding before jumping to conclusions and solutions.
Turning insight into action
The workshop and the event itself were a great success, with teams achieving an impressive amount in such a short time.
One team stayed up late to finish their idea, creating a Figma prototype and a functional backend including a GPT-4 powered chatbot within the 36-hour window.
Conclusion and lasting impressions
It was inspiring to see such enthusiasm and talent from teenagers who are eager to learn new skills.
We should be optimistic about the next generation of Design Thinkers, as well as being mindful about opening opportunities up to under-represented backgrounds.
It has never been more important to equip young minds with the skills they need to ensure that the future of technology will support their dreams and ambitions for the betterment of society.
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