CBSE to Integrate AI(Artificial Intelligence): The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE), the national level board of education in India for public and private schools, controlled and managed by the Union Government of India, today announced the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the high school curriculum (Grade XI & XII) for the current academic year (2020 – 2021).

Developed in collaboration with IBM (NYSE: IBM), the curriculum is part of CBSE’s Social Empowerment through Work Education and Action (SEWA) program and will be introduced in approximately 200 schools across 13 states in India (Delhi-NCR, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Kerala, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Punjab).

The IBM AI curriculum is structured around a course framework for students consisting of base strands of knowledge (basics, history, applications), skills (design thinking, computational thinking, data fluency, critical thinking), and values (ethical decision making, bias) in AI.

It is further made robust with problem-based learning outcomes and assessment methods for teachers to build foundational skills of AI in students making them not just consumers of AI but creators as well.

To meet CBSE’s requirements for grades 11 and 12, the curriculum was co-developed with Australia’s Macquarie University and Indian implementation partners — Learning Links Foundation and 1M1B.

“The question on the minds of educators and economists alike is how will technology impact jobs moving forward and how can we prepare our students to succeed in an increasingly automated, AI-driven world,” said Sandip Patel, General Manager for IBM India and South Asia.

“The objective of our exciting collaboration with CBSE is to help address some of those challenges by designing one of the most accessible and comprehensive gateways for students to begin their AI journey,” he said in a statement.

Manoj Ahuja, Chairperson, CBSE said, “AI will certainly become all-pervasive in our lives in coming years and it is important to inculcate the necessary skills & knowledge right from high school level. The unique proposition of the IBM AI curriculum is that it allows Grade XI & XII students from all streams, in addition to Computer Science, to build the foundation for themselves to be AI-ready. This same ethos has been carried forward in our ‘AI for Better India’ initiative as well as ‘IBM EdTech Youth Challenge’ which helps break the myth around AI. With support from IBM, we are proud to lead the way for the nation by developing such an innovative training-based learning approach for students & teachers, while inspiring them to use AI for social good.”

Launch of the 2020 IBM EdTech Youth Challenge

IBM and CBSE also announced the 2020 IBM EdTech Youth Challenge to encourage teams of students and teachers to leverage emerging technologies including cloud, AI, Blockchain to solve existing or imminent problems that society is facing. Final winners stand to get a two-week internship & mentorship experience from senior leaders at IBM as well as opportunities to participate in national or international hackathons or conferences.

2020 ‘AI for Better India’ hackathon winners announced

IBM and CBSE also announced the winners of the 2020 ‘AI for better India’ hackathon focussed on leveraging AI to solve real-world problems. IBM mentors from the software labs were instrumental in empowering students with industry skills to ideate, design, build solutions and present to clients. Of the 464 AI project submissions received, 103 projects submitted by 260 students were selected for expert mentoring by IBM mentors. These projects were onboarded to the Hacker Earth mentorship platform as part of the ‘AI for Better India’ challenge by IBM.
The finalists graduate to 2020 IBM EdTech Youth Challenge.