Penn States Nittany AI Challenge is teaching students the true meaning of collaboration in the age of Artificial Intelligence.

Nittany AI Challenge LionPlanner

This year, artificial intelligence is the buzzword. On university campuses, students who just graduated high school are checking out the latest computer science course offerings to see if they can take classes in machine learning. The truth about the age of Artificial Intelligence has caught many university administrators attention. In the age of AI, to be successful, everyone, no matter what jobs, skill sets, or majors will at some point encounter AI in their work and their life.Penn Statesaw the benefits of working on AI projects early, specifically when it comes to teamwork and collaboration. Since 2017, their successfulNittany AI Challengeeach year, has helped to teach students what it means to collaborate in the age of Artificial Intelligence.

Every university has challenges. Students bring a unique perspective and understanding of these challenges. The Nittany AI Challenge was created to provide a framework and support structure to enable students to form teams and collaborate on ideas that could address a problem or opportunity, using AI technology as the enabler. The Nittany AI Challenge is our innovation engine, ultimately putting students on stage to demonstrate how AI and machine learning can be leveraged to have a positive impact on the university.

The Nittany AI Challenge runs for 8 months each year. It has multiple phases such as the idea phase, the prototype phase, and the MVP phase. In the end, theres a pitch competition between 5 to 10 teams and they compete for a pool of $25,000. The challenge incentivizes students to keep going by awarding the best teams at each phase of the competition with another combined total of $25,000 during the 8 months of competition. By the time pitching comes around for the top 5 to 10 teams, these teams not only have figured out how they can work together as a team, but they have also experienced what it means to receive funding.

This year, the Nittany AI Challenge has expanded from asking students to solve the universitys problems using AI to broader categories based on the theme of AI for Good. Students are competing in additional categories such as humanitarianism, healthcare, and sustainability/climate change.

In the last two years, students formed teams amongst friends within their circle. But, as the competition matured, now, theres an online system that allows students to sign up for teams.

Students often form teams with students coming from different backgrounds and majoring in different disciplines based on their shared interest on a project. Christie Warren, the app designer from theLionPlanner team, helped her team to create a 4-year degree planning tool that won 2018s competition. She credits the competition for giving her a clear path to a career in app design and teaching her how to collaborate with developers.

For me the biggest learning curve is to learn to work alongside developers, as far as when to start to go into the high fidelity designs, wait for people to figure out the features that need to be developed, etc. Just looking at my designs and being really open to improvements and going through iterations of the design with the team helped me overcome the learning curve.

Early on, technology companies such as Microsoft, Google Cloud, IBM Watson, and Amazon Web Services recognized the value of an on-campus AI competition such as the Nittany AI Competition to provide teamwork education to students before they embark on internships with technology companies. Theyve been sponsoring the competition since its inception.

Both the students and us from Microsoft benefit from the time working together, in that we learn about each others culture, needs and aspirations. Challenges like the Nittany AI Challenge highlight that studying in Higher Education should be a mix of learning and fun. If we can help the students learn and enjoy the experience then we also help them foster a positive outlook about their future of work.

While having fun, some students like Michael D. Roos, project manager and backend developer from the LionPlanner team have seen synergy between his internships and his project for the Nittany AI competition. He credits the competition as giving him a pathway to success beyond simply a college education. Hes a lot more confident stepping out into the real world whether its working for a startup or a large technology company because of the experience gained.

I was doing my internship with Microsoft during a part of the competition. Some of the technology skills I learned at my internship I could then apply to my project for the competition. Also, having the cumulative experience of working on the project for the Nittany AI competition before going into my internship helped me with my internship. Even though I was interning at Microsoft, my team had similar startup vibes as the competition, my role on the team was similar to my role on the project. I felt I had a headstart in that role because of my experience in the competition.

One of the biggest myths that the Nittany AI Challenge helped to debunk is that AI implementations require only the skills of technologists. While computer science students who take a keen interest in machine learning and AI are central to every project inside the Nittany AI Challenge, its often the people who are the visionary project managers, creative designers, and students who are majoring in other disciplines such as healthcare, biological sciences, and business who end up making the most impactful contributions to the team.

The AI Alliance makes the challenge really accessible. For people like me who dont know AI, we can learn AI along the way.

The LionPlanner Team that won the competition in 2018 contributes their success mainly to the outstanding design that won over the judges. Christie, the app designer on the team credits her success to the way the team collaborated which enabled her to communicate with developers effectively.

Nyansapo_Team_pic

Every member of the Nyansapo Team that is trying to bring English education to remote parts of Kenya via NLP learning software contributes their success to the energy and the motivation behind the vision of the project. Because everyone felt strongly about the vision, even though they have one of the biggest teams in the competition, everyones pulling together and collaborating.

I really like to learn by doing. Everybody on the team joined, not just because they had something to offer, but because the vision was exciting. We are all behind this problem of education inequality in Kenya. We all want to get involved to solve this problem. We are this excited to want to go the extra step.

Not only does the Nittany AI challenge teach students the art of interdisciplinary collaboration, but it also teaches students time management, stress management, and how to overcome difficulties. During the competition, students are often juggling difficult coursework, internships, and other extracurricular activities. They often feel stressed and overwhelmed. This can pose tremendous challenges for team communication. But, as many students pointed out to me, these challenges are opportunities to learn how to work together.

There was a difficult moment yesterday in between my classes, where I had to schedule a meeting with Edward to discuss the app interface later during the day, at times, everything can feel a bit chaotic. In the back of my head, when I think about the vision of our project, how much Im learning on the project, and how Im working with all my friends, these are the things that keep me going even through hard times.

One of the projects from the Nittany AI Challenge that the university is integrating into their systems is the LionPlanner tool. It uses AI algorithms to help students match their profiles with clubs and extracurricular activities they might be interested in. It also helps students plan their courses to customize their degree to allow them to complete on time while keeping the cost of their degree as low as possible.

The students who worked on the project are now working to create a Prospective Student Planning Tool that can integrate into the University Admissions Office systems to be used by transfer students.

Currently, in the U.S., theres a skill gap of almost 1.5 million high tech jobs. Companies are having a hard time hiring people who have the skills to work in innovative companies. We now have coding camps, apprenticeships, and remote coding platforms.

Why not also have university-sponsored AI challenges where students can demonstrate their potential and abilities to collaborate?

The Nittany AI Challenge from Penn State presents a unique solution in the age of innovation that many employees are trying to solve. By sitting in the audience as judges, companies can follow the teams progress and watch students shine in their perspective areas. Students are not pitching their skills. Students are pitching their work products. They are showing what they can do in real-time for 8 months.

This could be a new way for companies to recruit. We have NFL drafts. Why not have drafts for star players on these AI teams that work especially well with others?

This year, Penn State introduced the Nittany AI Associates program where students can continue their work from the Nittany AI Challenge so that they can develop their ideas further.

So while thechallengeis the "Innovation Engine", theNittanyAIAssociates provides students the opportunity to work on managed projects with an actual client, funding to the students to reduce their debt (paid internships), a low cost, low risk avenue for the university (and other clients) to innovate, while providingAIknowledge transfer to client staff (the student becomes the teacher).

In the age of AI, education is becoming more multidisciplinary. When higher education institutions can evolve the way that they teach their students to enable both innovation and collaboration, then the potential they unleash in their graduates can have an exponential effect on their career and the companies that hire them. Creating competitions and collaborative work projects such as the Nittany AI Challenge within the university that fosters win-win thinking might just be the key to the type of innovations we need in higher education to keep up in the age of AI.

Original post:
University Students Are Learning To Collaborate on AI Projects - Forbes