Young people from all over Türkiye are touching the real world by exploring the ethical and social benefits of artificial intelligence
While the Artificial Intelligence Stars project calls on young people to produce innovative solutions, it goes beyond just consuming technology and sets new standards around ethics, security and social responsibility. In this article, we examine in depth the vision behind the project, the prominent projects of the participating teams, and what transformation the mentoring process created.
Working together: Young people, mentors and institutions
This program, which was implemented as a joint initiative of Vodafone Turkey Foundation and Habitat Association, encourages high school students to develop advanced artificial intelligence solutions. A total of 10 high school teams from 9 participating provinces turned their technological startup ideas into concrete prototypes with an intense two-day hackathon experience. Understanding the issues that arise for young people and families and producing innovative responses to them has been central to this process.
Projects on stage: Ethics, communication and security focused solutions
The projects evaluated at the end of the hackathon attracted attention not only with their technical success but also with their social impact potential. BALAL Wasp Coding team from Izmir won first place with its Nexus AI v5.0 project, which analyzes users’ cyber screen and eye health. This project clearly demonstrated how artificial intelligence can be applied in the field of health and safety. The platform called ArbitrA, which monitors content production within the framework of ethical rules and guarantees accuracy, was developed by the VFLAI team in Istanbul and won the second prize. Us to Us team from Gaziantep managed to strengthen family communication with the mobile application BizBize. The AI of All team in Hatay won the Social Impact Award with the project titled Datia, designed for children with special needs. These projects stood out not only for their technological achievements, but also for their design decisions that strengthen pillars such as accessibility, security and data privacy.
A transformative impact in mentoring and education
During the event, 15 volunteer mentors accelerated the prototyping processes, contributing to each team reaching their goals. Mentors provided technical direction, guidance on user experience design, data security, and ethical principles to help students transform their ideas into workable solutions. This process enabled young people to grow up as individuals who not only use technology but also act with ethical and social responsibility awareness.
History and growing goals
The beginning of the project dates back approximately 1.5 years ago, and during this time, a wide education network was created by reaching more than 90 thousand students in 81 provinces across Türkiye. The goals for the next period include providing artificial intelligence skills to a total of 55 thousand new students and thus enabling young people to play an active role in the digital age. This plan prepares young people for the business world with a competency-based learning approach and encourages them to produce projects focused on innovation and social benefit.
Two-day atmosphere: Rapid prototyping, feedback and scalable solutions
During the hackathon, participants worked on real-world problems. He developed strategies especially on rapid identification of user needs, data security and educational technologies. Sprints and mentoring sessions held over two days also covered risk analysis, user acceptance testing and scalability criteria. As a result, each team’s project scope stood out for its technical challenges and impressive user scenarios.
Impact of projects on society and long-term vision
Social impact-focused awards highlighted issues such as data security, safe digital experiences for children and families, and the use of environmentally friendly artificial intelligence. This approach not only called on young people to produce innovation, but also directed them to produce ethical and inclusive solutions to social problems. The long-term vision of the project is shaped around the following main topics: increasing technology literacy at the local level, inclusive education programs, participation in the entrepreneurship ecosystem and expanding the network of influence through international collaborations.
Investing in the future: Sustainable development and competencies in artificial intelligence
This program does not only aim for instant success; It aims to equip young people with competency sets that will make them competitive in the business world of the future. Topics such as data science fundamentals, ethical use of artificial intelligence, user-centered design and secure software development are at the center of the curriculum. In addition, the participation of mentors from the industry motivates students to produce solutions to real-world problems and makes it easier to build academic-business bridges in the following years.
In conclusion: The bridge between young people, social values and technology
The Artificial Intelligence Stars project increases the innovation capacity of young people and strengthens their ethical and social responsibility awareness. In this context, young people focus on critical values such as user security, privacy, reducing the risks of victimization and equal access when designing their own projects. Thus, it becomes not only a technology competition, but also an organization that aims to create social impact. As the goals become more comprehensive in the coming period, our youth’s ability to use artificial intelligence as a tool that increases social welfare will increase, and this will be recorded as an important example of validating Türkiye’s digital transformation.
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