Sparking Innovation in Jamaica with AI and Entrepreneurship
What happens when powerhouse tech leaders, passionate educators, and driven community organizations unite with one bold mission? You get an opportunity to impact and inspire the next generation of Jamaican innovators, lighting up classrooms and minds across the island!
In partnership with Microsoft, Katrina Scott, Chief Engagement Advisor at World Wide Technology, brought together two organizations, I AM STEM and AIM, for a two-part initiative that promotes technological innovation, education, and opportunity in Jamaica. The I AM STEM initiative, founded by Dr. Natalie S. King, PhD of Georgia State University, is a Camp designed to mentor underrepresented children in the STEM workforce and equip them with the knowledge, resources, and skills to become scientifically literate and productive citizens. The AIM Innovation Bootcamp, a week-long hybrid programme, brought together students from Grades 8 to 11 for an immersive dive into artificial intelligence (AI), entrepreneurship, and real-world problem-solving. Here's how these two initiatives came together to empower students and teachers to embrace and utilize AI!
At the Wolmer's School for Girls, our team worked with Dr. Natalie King's I AM STEM initiative to empower teachers to use AI not just as a tool, but as a teaching superpower. WWT's Ashley Schrage and Shanice Brown lead 50 Jamaican educators through a deep dive into AI with a hands-on workshop called Unlocking AI: Prompting 101. The workshop included lessons on the evolution of AI, responsible ai use, effective prompting, and leveraging copilot as your ai tool, which gave teachers practical tools to better utilize AI for efficiency in the classroom.
Armed with customizable lesson-planning prompts and newly earned digital badges through WWT's AI Unboxed: from Origins to Everyday Use Learning Path, these educators left ready to fuel their students' creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
In addition to empowering educators with the fundamentals of AI, the team also prepared the next generation of tech professionals with the technical skills needed to thrive. At a high-energy AI and entrepreneurship camp for Jamaican high school students, powered by WWT, Microsoft, and AIM, Ashley and Shanice rolled up their sleeves and designed the content using a clever AI agent called Replit, which created a fully interactive website that became the core of the camp's curriculum. But this wasn't just about tech for tech's sake, it was about making AI relevant to Jamaica's youth, blending global innovation with local impact.
Together with local educators, the team crafted a culturally responsive curriculum that addressed real community needs. Around 20 students, both in-person and virtual, got hands-on experience exploring AI basics and how to launch a business. They even pitched their own startup ideas! Talk about thinking big!
This is more than a series of cool workshops. It's a movement to bring technical expertise and innovation to the island and people of Jamaica. Through collaborative, community-driven programs like these, WWT, Microsoft, and their partners are helping to build a generation of confident, capable, and creative Jamaican leaders in tech and business.
From the classroom to the pitch room, young Jamaicans are being empowered to dream big and innovate even bigger, with educators right beside them, equipped and inspired to lead the way.