A Mark Cuban Foundation AI Bootcamp for high school students will be hosted by the University of Texas at Dallas at no cost this fall in Addison.

The artificial intelligence bootcamp will target underserved high school students in the ninth through 12th grades and will introduce them to basic AI concepts and skills, the foundation said.

The University of Texas at Dallas is one of more than 28 host companies selected to host camps across the nation this fall.

The UT Dallas Bootcamp will be held over four consecutive Saturdays starting Oct. 14 and ending on Nov. 4, the foundation said. Each session will be held from 1 to 5 p.m. If accepted, high school students must commit to attending all four sessions, the foundation said.

The student and parent applications are now open, the foundation added. Students don’t need prior experience with computer science, programming, or robotics to apply and attend.

What students will learn

According to the foundation, students will learn what artificial intelligence is and is not, where they already interact with AI in their own lives, and the ethical implications of AI systems including but not limited to TikTok recommendations, smart home assistants, facial recognition, and self-driving cars, among others.

Participants also will learn how Large Language Models like ChatGPT are changing life as we know it by answering questions, telling original stories, and even writing computer code.

Students will interact with volunteer corporate mentor instructors who are knowledgeable about AI, ML, and data science and will be able to help students quickly understand material normally taught at a college level.

As part of the four-hour curriculum, students will work with open-source tools to build their own AI applications related to Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Generative AI, the foundation said.

The Mark Cuban Foundation said it will provide the bootcamp’s curriculum materials, train corporate volunteer mentors, and recruits and will score applications for local students selected to attend camp.

The foundation and UT Dallas will also work together to provide food, transportation, and access to laptops for students at no-cost throughout the duration of bootcamp.

More about the AI Bootcamp

A previous attendee said he learned a lot last year.

“It was a lot of fun, I learned things I didn’t even know were possible with A.I. and their real-world applications showed me just how much it will change our world,” said Brandon B., a 10th-grader who attended the 2022 AI Bootcamp.

The AI Bootcamp was founded in 2019 by the foundation. The initiative has hosted no-cost AI bootcamps for students across several U.S. cities, including the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Atlantic City. The foundation said it has impacted more than 900 students to date and has a goal to increase that number year over year.

Interested students should apply before Friday, September 8, at markcubanai.org/utdpr.

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