Computer Science, Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) — if you think you've heard these words enough times already, be prepared to hear them a whole lot more because they are the future. To turn mere words into action, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched the AWS Young Builders Challenge. This is especially directed towards school students so that they are able to sharpen their skills much in advance.
"The AWS Young Builders Challenge is an effort towards helping the younger student generation develop a scientific temper, explore coding and computational thinking and develop problem-solving and design thinking capabilities at a young age," says Sunil PP, Lead — Education, Space and Non-Profits, India and South Asia, Amazon Internet Services. He also goes on to give us examples of how telemedicine services like eSanjeevani and Project StepOne, that run on AWS Cloud, are helping governments offer teleconsultation and other healthcare services at scale across India. ML too is used extensively, like in healthcare for medical imaging to recognize patterns and diagnose diseases earlier. "While an incredible amount of progress is being made in organisations around the world regarding the adoption of AI and ML, it’s exciting that we’re still at the relative beginning," he shares.
Since the Ministry of Education – Innovation Cell, Government of India, Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) – NITI Aayog and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) think so too, they have lent their support along with Code.org who are responsible to develop the learning content and project building tools. Sunil PP also informs us that the initiative is also looking at supplementing the National Education Policy 2020.
How can artificial intelligence (AI) change the future of India? — that's the theme and the question AWS would like you to ponder on via the challenge. The sub-themes that you can work with are education, healthcare, agriculture, transportation and a few more. So what is it that schools need to do? They need to register and students from Classes VI to XII can participate. Creative and innovative projects around the sub-themes can be sent to them virtually via their event website. Don't worry, to tide through it, AWS offers also a few resources which are available on the event's microsite. "While the initiative expects students to gain introductory knowledge on the concepts of AI, ML and cloud computing from resources made available by Atal Innovation Mission and AWS, the tutorials from Code.org enable students to build projects using computer science fundamentals. The learning resources provide a thematic overview of AI to ignite the curiosity and innovative mindset among students," says Sunil PP.
Schools need to evaluate the entries as per parameters set by AWS Young Builders Challenge and submit their top two projects for further assessment. An external jury will pick the projects for the nationals and the top ten entries will be up in all their glory for everyone to see at a virtual show on November 15, 2021. Wait, there's more. The winning school will gain access to a cloud-enabled AI/ML lab, a wonderful virtual lab. "AWS will conduct teacher training workshops to drive the adoption, understanding and usage of the lab in the schools. The lab will provide students with hands-on practical knowledge of AWS Cloud and AI/ML services such as Amazon SageMaker, which is being used by tens of thousands of AWS customers around the world to develop innovative applications and solutions across industry verticals," elaborates Sunil PP.
So excited and ready to win but are looking for a few pointers? Don't worry we got you covered as we asked Sunil PP the same question. "Students need to have an open mind and think in an unconstrained way to build their innovative projects. The most important aspect here is for students to imagine the future and apply their learnings from the resources. Our advice to the students is to view the AWS Young Builders Challenge as an opportunity to explore something new, learn from one another and enjoy the experience," he offers.
Entries will be open till November 5, 2021 only, folks. So get on to https://www.awsybc2021.in/
