Preparing the next generation of AI scientists

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RANA EL KALIOUBY: If you have kids – you probably know that schools are struggling to keep up with the pace of AI. I get it. There are a lot of factors to consider including how to teach AI and how to integrate it into the classroom.

Which is why I was so excited to talk to Dr. Taniya Mishra, who is the founder and CEO of Sure Start – a company focused on preparing young people – from middle school all the way to college – for an AI-driven world.

And in particular, they focus on training a more diverse cohort of leaders who can shape our AI future.

ANNIKA: I’m currently working with a couple of peers on a startup called Connects, which integrates AI through a physical therapy platform. Having student athletes actually able to perform their exercises at home at their own convenience.

LOKESH: If I don’t use AI, I will most likely fall behind. So I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna use AI. I’m going to use it to enhance my abilities, not replace my abilities.

ASHMITA: AI is actually going to be foundational to my career. I study computer science and data science. I’m literally going into this, working in the intersection between cybersecurity and machine learning as a job. I’m also using it for my startup where we’re actually using computer vision and speech analysis to detect signs of stroke on onset and get people to the hospital.

EL KALIOUBY: You just heard from Annika Sachdeva, Lokesh Pampatti, and Ashmita Kumar. Impressive, right? Today, Taniya and I are talking about why we need AI education now, the importance of a more diverse tech workforce, and why staying the course is a winning strategy.

I’m Rana el Kaliouby and this is Pioneers of AI – a podcast taking you behind-the-scenes of the AI revolution.

[THEME MUSIC]

Tanya. Welcome to Pioneers of AI. It’s so good to see you. It’s been a while.

TANIYA MISHRA: It has and thank you for having me on your brilliant podcast.

Copy LinkHow a founder's vision for AI education first took shape

EL KALIOUBY: So today we’re going to talk about how we prepare the next generation of AI scientists and entrepreneurs. But before we dig into that, you and I have worked together for many years at my company, Affectiva. You were our director of research. There’s this one moment in our time together that has stuck with me all these years.

It was one of Affectiva’s annual family gatherings, and it was like a sunny day in August in Boston, and you and I were sitting on a bench and we were just chatting and you said, you know, one day I wanna be an entrepreneur and a founder like you and your eyes just lit up. I literally still remember this to this day. There was a sparkle in your eye.

And I sat there and I was like, I gotta help this amazing person start her company and start her entrepreneurial journey. So I am curious, do you remember that moment?

MISHRA: Absolutely. I remember even what preceded that, because that was actually our annual summer picnic, but it was the last day I would see the summer interns because I used to live in New York City and work in Boston, and our intern program was a bit of my baby.

So I had gone up in the morning, taken a three and a half hour Acela ride, and as I was riding up, I was starting to form what would in the future become Sure Start. The sort of the seedling of the ideas around this idea of building our future AI leaders. And then you and I had that conversation about it, and I still remember I said to you, what if we grew this into a really large part of Affectiva and you said Affectiva is great, but think bigger than Affectiva. Like let’s do some blue sky thinking. And that’s when I said to you, I would love to have a startup, a company that was focused on building up the next generation of AI talent. And yeah, I remember that conversation.

EL KALIOUBY: Our listeners can’t see this, but I literally have goosebumps right now. It’s such a powerful moment. It was powerful for you, but it was equally powerful for me because it made me realize that I just love unlocking potential in people and just making people believe. Right? And that’s sometimes all you need.

Copy LinkThe mentors and moments that opened the door to computer science

So let’s rewind though. You and I came to the US as adults, and mentors have played a key part in your journey. So just tell us what brought you here. How has your journey unfolded?

MISHRA: So I came to the US as a sophomore college student. I had never seen a modern computer ever before, and I saw it like the second day I was in the United States. I was staying with a relative who took me to her workplace because she couldn’t leave me home by myself. I probably didn’t know how to use any modern appliances, so that was a good thing. But she literally sat me down at a desktop next to her and brought up, if I remember, this old web browser called Netscape. She brought it up and she said, you can type in anything you want and you’ll get information. And so first I started testing it — I’m from India, so I was like, where is the Taj Mahal? Right? The canonical question. I was asking it state capitals, but my mind was blown that I could get information.

And then I started of course asking it questions about physics and chemistry and things that I was interested in. What used to take me conversations with my adults — my parents, my teachers — or if they didn’t know, an hour and a half long journey to the bigger city close to where I lived in India and the bigger library there, I could now get that information instantly. A week later I went to university and they set me up with my first email. I’m now in love. Like, I can send a letter — I used to call emails letters — to my parents and they can get it now. Nevermind the fact that they didn’t have a computer for a very long time after that. But the possibility of access to information and connectivity with loved ones — it’s like, this is magic. Whatever this is, I need to learn more about it. And that was when I met my first mentor, professor Ann Smith. She was the head of the computer science department at my university, St. Mary’s University of Winona, Minnesota. It was a small liberal arts college. And I must have talked her ear off about how amazing computers are. And she said, Tanya, why don’t you take CS 101? And I remember it being the moment of truth, feeling like I am the least prepared person at this university to take CS 101, because I didn’t even know how to type. And I said that to her. I said, but I don’t know how to type. And she said, that’s okay. It’s gonna be hard, but you can learn how to type and you can take computer science 101 and learn about logic and algorithms and coding. And that was — you said unlocking potential — and I think she did that for me that day because she took a chance on my goals and dreams and excitement and frankly gave me the vocabulary for what my career would be made up of.

EL KALIOUBY: Amazing. Because then you went on to do a PhD in computer science. So tell us about that and how that led you to Affectiva.

MISHRA: Yes. So I had a PhD in computer science with the focus on using machine learning to build educational tools for children on the autism spectrum so that they could learn how to have stronger social interactions, because that’s often the most challenging part of being on the autism spectrum for young people. So that was really my PhD thesis, and I did it at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, Oregon. That was where I also first started employing affective computing, because my PhD thesis was learning about how people express emotions through their voice, through their intonation, through their prosody, and then building models so that text to speech systems can be more expressive and more emotional, because ultimately that is what we as children are able to learn and are able to pick up in our social interactions.

EL KALIOUBY: We always kind of joke that we had like similar career paths because I did a lot of that, but using computer vision and facial expressions and you were doing that work, but analyzing voice.

MISHRA: Actually, that was how I found out about Affectiva, funnily. Because I went back and looked, you are actually cited in my PhD thesis. So while I didn’t know you as well as I know you now, I knew about your work. I would follow your work and then Affectiva. And so when the time came for me to look for a new opportunity, to do something different, I actually reached out to you over LinkedIn. I had been following your work and I sent you an email. I still remember that email because it was such a moonshot. I didn’t know you at all.

And I think you responded in about like 10 minutes, which having known you and how busy you are, I think was a miracle. It was like meant to be. And then I like to say that the rest is history. We met in New York and a few months later I was working at Affectiva. And really, together we were bringing to fruition sort of the beginnings of our conversation around making affective computing more multimodal and applying it in many, many ways, all the way from impacting children on the autism spectrum, all the way to addressing wellbeing and safety in semi-autonomous and autonomous vehicles.

Copy LinkWhy early internships can widen the AI talent pipeline

EL KALIOUBY: Yeah. So when you were at Affectiva, one of the things you and I were both passionate about at the time — and obviously you still are, and I am too — we wanted to start this internship program and we actually got a lot of pushback from our team because we had this vision of bringing in high school interns and they would take a lot of handholding. But you persisted. We both did. And you championed the Empath program.

One of the things that I’m really proud of was our team’s commitment to the diversity of the individuals we brought to that program. And if I recall, like 50% were female. Perhaps you can share the highlights of that program and some of our successes.

MISHRA: The Empath program at Affectiva — I see that as sort of the beta of what Sure Start went on to be. It was 50% female. We had students not just from across the US, but we had students all the way from Egypt. And we had expanded the program to not just be for college students and grad students, but there were high schoolers in it. And I think that was sort of for me the realization of the impact we can make on the AI ecosystem in making it more equitable and inclusive. It was by going younger, by creating space for really smart, engaged high school aged students — and now at Sure Start, even middle school aged students — to learn about AI, to build with AI, to connect to others who are already working in AI, and then be able to hold the space for them to build what matters to them. That’s where it goes from a technical concept to a real tool for making change in the world.

EL KALIOUBY: So what does this real world change actually look like? After a short break, we’ll hear about some of those success stories coming out of Sure Start. Stay with us.

[AD BREAK]

Copy LinkHow students turn AI learning into real community impact

EL KALIOUBY: I wanted to hear some real examples of Sure Start students making an impact on the world. And there was someone who quickly came to mind for Taniya.

MISHRA: So I wanna share the story of Erica Corral. We have her permission to share her story. When I met Erica in 2021, they were in the first summer program that we collaborate with MIT RAISE on, called MIT Future Makers. Erica, by their own admission, was a quiet, reserved young person who is the first person in her family to be going to college.

And I think they had just started college, and now after having done that one program and also built those networks, they are now pursuing a PhD in computer science at the University of Denver. They are a mentor in our program, mentoring dozens of kids. They are also a part of the Sure Start team helping develop content around AI that is inquiry-led, project-based, but most importantly co-created with young students themselves. And that’s such a success story — it’s like creating a virtuous cycle, because with Sure Start, my hope is to reach thousands, tens of thousands, maybe one day millions of kids. But in order to be able to do that, we use a decentralized model. When we train up a young person — or really any person, hopefully teachers as well — in AI skills, our hope is that they’re taking it back to their communities.

They’re teaching other people with it. AI is a disruptive technology, but its dissemination has also got to be disruptive and it has to be community based. It has to be collaborative.

EL KALIOUBY: I love it. What are some examples of the AI skills that Sure Start kind of trains these people on?

MISHRA: Yes. So we have AI courses for middle school students, starting in sixth grade all the way to —

EL KALIOUBY: What does that look like? Yeah. What would that —

MISHRA: Oh my goodness. Middle school students — it’s been so much fun to create these programs. So we have courses that are just 25 hours long. We call it AI Explorations. And that’s a really fun one where we leverage students’ natural creativity in art, in music, in storytelling, even journaling — I know you are a big journaler — in poetry, and say, okay, we are going to use this natural creativity to introduce you to a tool that can amplify your creativity.

It’s not gonna replace your creativity. It’s going to create efficiency. It’s going to become a co-creator with you, advise you. But through that, we are teaching them what is generative AI, because everyone’s talking about it, but also what is discriminative AI. And additionally we start to build their ethical AI lens. What are the important questions around ethics you need to ask? So in a creativity course, the first question that kids naturally ask is, so who is the author of this piece that I wrote? Am I the author? Is AI the author? Or is the author all of those amazing authors on whose work this AI has been trained? These are questions that none of us actually have answers to, but how amazing that 12 year olds can ask this question. We also have AI foundation courses. We have some partner schools in Asia, specifically Singapore, who are very tech forward.

Copy LinkTeaching middle schoolers to build with AI and think ethically

EL KALIOUBY: Now you were just there, right? You just had a trip there. Tell us more about that.

MISHRA: Singapore — they’re very tech forward as a community, but also the Singaporean government is very tech forward.

As soon as the sort of ChatGPT-led revolution happened, within a year of that we were hearing that schools are quite interested in introducing AI to their students. And so we got connected to a school called Excel World Academy in Singapore, and they have a powerhouse CEO and also head of school, Tammy Murphy.

So we have a one year, two semester course. These kids are learning about AI every single day, five days a week, first hour of their day. So again, what are we teaching them? We’re really teaching them what is AI, what is discriminative AI, but also how do you build with AI? How do you build with AI in a way that impacts from your local community all the way to your global community?

So what we do is we have them align their projects to UN Sustainable Development Goals. And through it, we also teach them interesting skills like not just problem solving, but problem identification. Once they’ve identified those problems, we give them an introduction to entrepreneurship, because entrepreneurship is a very real career path for AI or really any disruptive technology. And what is coming out — the projects that come out at the end of it —

— are mind blowing. One example was an app to help students with disabilities navigate cities worldwide. They’re starting with New York City. What if there was a map that told you where all the accessible subways were, where all of the accessible restrooms were in the buildings — and it came directly from students, 12 and 13 year olds who are thinking about it. And so you can easily imagine the projects that our high school students are doing or our college students, because these projects are so powerful that they’re not staying projects, they’re then becoming startups.

Copy LinkWhat schools need to make AI education work in the classroom

EL KALIOUBY: Yeah, so cool. So Stanford just released their AI index report for this year, and they reported 81% of K through 12 computer science teachers say that AI should be part of the foundational program at the school. But only half feel equipped to teach it. You and I both have younger kids.

I am curious what you’re seeing in the US. Are people leaning into embracing AI in the classroom? I sit on the board of our school and we’re definitely trying to navigate that. We’re trying to lean in, but there’s pushback obviously. What are you seeing?

MISHRA: So it feels like a mixed bag, right? Teachers are rightfully concerned about how knowledge acquisition will happen if there is a tool that gives you all the answers.

Right. So I hear the tension and I think we need to address it. I think AI is absolutely able to address it, but AI cannot just be built by technologists. It needs to be built with domain experts playing as much of a role, if not more, in the development of these technologies.

So I’m seeing certain schools that are very bullish on technology, like our partner schools in Singapore. We are seeing some of that here in the US as well. But we are also seeing schools that are very interested but don’t know where to start. More teacher training needs to be done, not just around workflow, but also how to teach AI, because it’s a whole new curricula, and also how to teach with AI. So if you’re an English teacher — because we get these questions all the time — how do I use AI in my classroom in a way that bridges that tension between learning how to write well and also using AI as a co-creator?

Right? So I think we are seeing that, but then we are also seeing something else, which is probably more prevalent, which is that current curriculum in the classroom is already quite wide. So then we get this question: we are interested in bringing AI to the classroom, but what will I need to drop in order to pick up AI?

Because no governmental standards or state standards require AI. So we are seeing the full spectrum, and this goes back to what you and I have talked throughout this conversation, which is that it requires collaboration from technologists, educators, and the government. All three stakeholders need to come together in order to say how do we begin the education of young minds starting today so that our future leaders have skills, have confidence, have self-efficacy, and can make great decisions with tools like AI?

EL KALIOUBY: Sure Start is intentional about their outreach. They particularly want to bring in students across the diversity spectrum. We get to why after a short break.

[AD BREAK]

Copy LinkWhy a more diverse AI workforce leads to better technology

EL KALIOUBY: Okay, so let’s talk about diversity. It’s something that you and I both are very passionate about. Sure Start is very intentional in supporting students with diverse backgrounds in every sense of the word – diversity of gender, age, ethnicity, race, lived experiences, socioeconomic background too.

But the current AI landscape, as you and I know, is not that diverse, so I’ll just put some numbers behind it. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, women make up only 26% of the computer science and math focused workforce in 2024. Only 9.6% of that workforce is Black or African American, and 8.3% are Hispanic or Latino. These numbers don’t represent what the US actually looks like, and I think it’s kind of concerning and depressing for a whole host of reasons. So let’s unpack that. AI is going to change the way we work, the way we live — it’s gonna change every aspect of our lives. And if it’s designed by a very small subset of human beings, it’s not gonna work for the rest of us. What’s your take on why it matters to ensure that AI is equitable and inclusive?

MISHRA: I think all of us are asking, irrespective of how it’s being applied, how do we make sure that AI is not biased? How do we make sure that the AI landscape is more equitable? And I think the work that we are doing at Sure Start is actually almost foundational. We have to bring more people to those decision making tables where AI is being brainstormed on, designed, developed, used, deployed. And we need to start early. We need to start by bringing AI knowledge, AI literacy, AI informedness, much earlier to kids. And again, it needs to be a public private partnership. The way we implement Sure Start’s programs is great — we have amazing tech forward partners both in the US as well as globally.

We work with amazing organizations like MIT RAISE, we work with Carnegie Mellon. But really what we need to do is bring public private partnerships so that programs like ours are going into every public school that is out there. We are doing collaborative instruction with classroom teachers. We are not just throwing curriculum over the wall or doing a small number of hours of training. We are actually supporting them. We are scaffolding the teachers. We are pre-skilling teachers to upskill their students. We have to get this education into the hands of every kid, from every background, every lived experience, but also with many, many different ways of viewing the world. If we put the work in today, then in a decade the landscape is going to look really different. And we can ensure that our AI is less biased if we ensure that the people building it represent the richness and the diversity of the world we live in.

EL KALIOUBY: You mentioned DEI several times on your website, and in this moment in time it’s almost like a statement. There’s a national rollback on DEI efforts. Companies like Google have said they will no longer set hiring targets for people from underrepresented backgrounds. How has this moment affected your company and has there been a ripple effect on what you do?

MISHRA: I teach my kids to raise their hand. I say leaders don’t fly below the radar, and I want to live — I want to be that representation for my students. So no, we continue to do the work that we do. Inclusion is good for everybody. I think we are lucky in that we work with people who are visionary and people who are not swayed by, I would say, momentary trends, interests, or fears.

We stay the course. And I think we will be very shortsighted if we change how we teach and who we teach and how we bring access and equity to the AI ecosystem just because of geopolitical concerns and hype of a few years.

Copy LinkHow neurodiversity can strengthen the future of AI

EL KALIOUBY: Yeah, absolutely. You and I did a lot of work in the autism space and I know it’s very dear to your heart as well. How important is it that we also take a neurodiversity lens on AI?

MISHRA: It’s extremely important that we take a neurodiversity lens on AI because research has shown that the average person on the autism spectrum has higher systematizing skills than the average neurotypical person, but currently more than 85% of people with autism are either unemployed or underemployed. Which means that the AI ecosystem is missing out on at least 85% of a skillset and set of perspectives from people who would be really good at doing this job. They would be very good at it.

EL KALIOUBY: A lot of AI jobs include very systematic, logic-driven pattern recognition and repetitive tasks, which are a great match for a lot of individuals on the autism spectrum.

MISHRA: Absolutely. Attention to detail is a very big part of most technical work, and people on the autism spectrum are very good at attending to detail. So we are actually — we’ve just started addressing this in a very explicit way. Last year we launched a partnership with Carnegie Mellon where we have a summer program, which has now expanded into a spring and summer program called PASS for AI, where we are supporting community college students who have autism in building career ready skills in AI and plugging them into their first internships. And we are also supporting companies by helping the supervisors teach them how to work with a neurodiverse team member so that your team can be broader and you are able to once again bring a new lens to the work that you are doing and you are getting an amazing employee. We absolutely need to create space for people with learning differences to be able to bring their interests, ideas, knowledge and skills to technology and AI, but also all the future disruptive technologies we are going to be building.

EL KALIOUBY: We don’t often do this on the show, Tanya, but I would love to put out a call to action for any of our listeners who would be potential partners for you, to bring more of this AI education to more people and especially in the neurodiverse community.

MISHRA: So we work with partners of all stripes. We work with higher educational institutions who have a goal to widen participation in technology, or people who are really looking at how do you do new, pedagogically sound models that are project-based around AI. We also partner with K-12 institutions who are interested in bringing these programs directly to their classrooms. But what we are very, very interested in right now is national programs or global programs that have similar goals around AI education for K-12 students or early college students, with a goal to prepare our workforce to be future ready.

Copy LinkWhy empathy remains the most human advantage in the age of AI

EL KALIOUBY: So final question, Tanya. We ask this to all our guests on the show. With AI becoming so smart and so efficient and even creative and empathetic — which is the work you and I have spent so many years building — what do you think it means to be human in the age of AI?

MISHRA: I think you almost used the word that I would. Empathetic, compassionate. And that’s where I think it kind of goes back to the approach that we have taken to building Sure Start. Humans at the center of the innovation, and actually even learning from humans. When I said we have near peer role models at Sure Start, they’re the heart of Sure Start. They are there not just to teach students tactical skills, but they create psychological safety. And so much goes into that. You have to be able to put yourself in the other person’s shoes — that’s the definition of empathy. And I think that’s the essence of being human. AI is going to create efficiencies for us in a way that will actually leave us more time to do the things that only we as humans can do best, which is to be able to connect, collaborate, empathize, and grow closer to other humans.

EL KALIOUBY: I love it. What a wonderful way to end our interview and I’m so proud of how far you’ve come and it’s been a real honor to be part of this journey of growth and of just making AI more accessible and inclusive to everyone. Thank you for joining us today.

MISHRA: Thank you Rana, for having me on your brilliant podcast.

EL KALIOUBY: I love the journey that Taniya is on, founding and growing SureStart and I am very proud of the impact she’s making.

There are two concrete takeaways I got from our conversation.

One, Taniya is on a mission to change the face of AI – particularly focusing on young people. This is critical – as they will be the ones using AI in their jobs and personal lives. They need to be AI literate so they can shape it in a way that benefits us all. Our youth need to be active participants and builders of AI … not just consumers.

And two, it’s so important to have diverse human beings who are designing, building and deploying AI. Not only to mitigate algorithmic bias, but also increase the breadth of ideas that AI is solving. That is how we spread the positive impact of this technology across the globe.