Educating the future of AI

Want to build career success pathways for ALL students? That’s our mission too. Let’s collaborate.

Our goal is a diverse, inclusive and hence, creative and sustainable, tech and AI workforce of the future, in which all students with tech aspirations and aptitude can participate in these high-value AI jobs.

Collaboration among like-minded organizations is key towards achieving this goal. We’re currently collaborating with education institutions serving student populations underrepresented in tech and AI, to help close the gap between graduation and the first day on the job. Using an industry-focused AI/ML curriculum that interweaves technical and professional skills needed for AI, data, and machine learning related roles, SureStart prepares students for careers in AI by simulating a real-world workplace environment where students build operational AI solutions while learning valuable interpersonal and career skills. The result? Polished graduates who are equipped to land their first roles in fields like data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

SureStart’s Virtual AI Learning (VAIL) program

Train

Using an industry-focussed modular curriculum developed by AI professionals, we help students to  develop foundational knowledge of AI/ML and Data Science and build hands-on coding skills, including experience with common ML/AI libraries, needed for entry-level jobs in these areas, including data exploration and visualization, training models and performing classifications.

Amplify

“You have to see them, to hire them!” To ensure that this next generation of representative AI leaders get seen, recognized, celebrated, and ultimately, hired, students in each SureStart intensive design and prototype a final capstone project — a human-centered solution with AI — which they present in a strongly-marketed public pitch-style competition to industry experts and future employers.

Nurture

Job readiness involves more than just technical knowledge. In a SureStart intensive, students not only build hands-on AI/ML skills but they are also supported in building skills critical to successfully land AI/ML related roles such as portfolio development, resume writing, and interview preparation with support from trained near-peer mentors who have recently walked the same career journey.

We’ve created a 3-pillar approach to developing tomorrow’s AI leaders.

Upon completing the SureStart VAIL program, students walk away with four tangible outcomes: an updated resume with new AI/ML skills, a portfolio of code samples and projects, a video showcase of their capstone AI project, and preparedness to take the next career step! Past SureStart trainees, within months of completing SureStart’s Virtual AI Learning (VAIL) program have secured roles at:

We provide the boost students need — they do the rest

How we collaborate with educational organizations?

We work with you to meet the needs of your students and your institution. Here are three collaboration options, which can be further tailored to meet your specific needs:

  1. Join our consortium of schools to bring your students into the next SureStart training cohort.

  2. Let us develop and implement a white-labeled technical AI program customized to your organization’s needs

  3. License our program playbook and SureStart will provide consulting support to develop your organization’s internal AI training program

Benefits to you as a partner institution

Advance employability of your students into high-paying AI-related tech roles

Increase engagement and retention of high-performing students

Develop sustainable university-industry relationships

Attract top-caliber students by showcasing students' emerging careers in AI/ML and Data Science fields

Our Collaborations

Beginning Summer of 2021, SureStart has collaborated with MIT RAISE to develop and implement the MIT FutureMakers Create-a-thon, run annually each summer, to nurture early talent pipelines for a more diverse and ethical AI workforce for the future. The MIT FutureMakers program is a 6-week, no cost, multi-track virtual program for students from underserved communities across the US. Participating students learn technical AI, data and machine learning skills, as well as power skills critical for workplace success. They hone these skills continually throughout the duration of the program by developing multiple projects hosted on a publicly available Github repo, and cap it off by prototyping a complete AI-based solution to a socially-impactful real-world problem, which is presented to industry experts and future employers in a pitch style competition. Every student is supported by a trained technical mentor, often a graduate student, with AI development experience and a passion for mentorship, to scaffold the student’s journey with tactical help, accountability and encouragement.

MIT FutureMakers Programs with MIT RAISE

Jeff Freilich, Program Lead, AI Literacy, MIT Media Lab

“Working with SureStart has been an incredibly positive experience. Taniya and the SureStart team not only bring targeted expertise in AI education and technology, but also a bounty of enthusiasm in everything they do. They helped us break through boundaries, embolden new entrants to AI to take worthwhile risks in our workshop, and ultimately leave a lifelong impact on their learning and growth. I’m sure we will be working with SureStart for many years to come.”

Over a 18 month period spanning 2021-2022, SureStart partnered with Break Through Tech/Cornell Tech to get the first cohort of on the Break Through AI immersion program off the ground with great success. The goal of this program is to train, support and amplify college women from traditionally underrepresented populations who are just starting their journeys into tech and AI. Scaffolding the critical mentoring dimension of the Break Through AI training program, SureStart provided support to these young female technologists as they built up their technical skills, prepared for technical interviewing, and applied for their first AI roles. Working together, our two organizations supported 75% of the student cohort to land their first tech and AI related industry internships during the Summer of 2022.

Break Through AI with Cornell Tech

Are you an organization that is committed to developing students from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in AI?

Learn how SureStart can help!

 Interested in collaborating with SureStart to help prepare students for life in today’s tech world? Get in touch.