On March 18th , CREATE SE4AI took part in WIE Inspire WIE Empower, an annual event hosted by the Women in Engineering (WIE) student association at the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science at Concordia University. Through their various outreach and mentorship activities, WIE encourages young women to explore engineering and computer science as career options.
This year, WIE welcomed over 80 high school girls aged 12-17 to Concordia for an exciting day of inspiration and exploration. After a welcome address by Dr. Gina Cody, students participated in 4 hands-on, industry-led workshops. CREATE SE4AI trainees and Master’s students Divya Kamath (Queen’s University), Lorena Barreto (Concordia University) and Khaled Badran (Concordia University), along with Program Coordinator Lori Akiyama developed and delivered a fun, interactive workshop on AI and Chatbots to 4 groups of students. The goals of the workshop were to:
- Introduce the basic concepts of AI and chatbots to the students
- Encourage the students to develop confidence interacting with technology
- Stimulate a discussion of ethics of AI in society through a group reflection exercise
At the end of the workshop, the students shared their experiences interacting with chatbots and reflected on the importance of creating responsible and ethical AI.
CREATE was proud to contribute to this important initiative, and we look forward to more opportunities to engage with youth and inspire them to learn more about software engineering and AI in the future.
