80,000 Telangana Minority Students To Get Free AI And Digital Safety Training

HYDERABAD: A 24-module AI readiness and digital safety programme will begin across all 205 Telangana Minorities Residential Educational Institutions Society (TMREIS) schools from August 15, which will cover 80,000 minority students at no cost to the state government. Announcing this, ,inorities welfare minister Mohammed Azharuddin also said a proposal to open 20 TMREIS degree colleges was awaiting approval from Deputy Chief Minister and finance minister Mallu BhattiVikramarka.

The government on Friday unveiled the school programme in association with MASK NextGen Inc. and Doxa Consulting Private Limited. Intel is supporting the CSR initiative, according to the organisers.

MASK NextGen will provide the gamified, self-paced course, which includes 24 interactive modules and three assessments. The curriculum covers basic AI knowledge, digital safety, English proficiency, leadership, gender respect, diversity and inclusion.

Avni Trivedi, founder and CEO of MASK NextGen, said all 205 schools were included as they formed the TMREIS network. Her organisation tested the programme with residential institutions in January.

“These children are away from their parents and in a different environment. They are learning technology, so they need to be safeguarded even more,” she said. “We chose them from that perspective. This is a starting point for us, and we are looking to scale to others.”

Teams will examine the internet access, computers and digital facilities available at each school. Staff capacity will also be assessed before the course begins.

“The institutions we worked with had the facilities. We are going to spend time with every school and assess what they have, how much they have and how we can digitise them along the way,” Trivedi said.

Azharuddin said almost all TMREIS schools had internet access and computers. Students needed to learn how to recognise AI-generated material and protect themselves online, he added. “AI is here to stay. Even when you watch reels, sometimes you cannot make out whether it is real, AI-generated or whether it actually happened,” the minister said.

He said lessons on cybersecurity and digital safety at school would leave students better prepared when they entered college. Further, MASK NextGen will measure course usage, AI readiness and digital resiliency. Each student will receive individual AI readiness and digital resiliency scores during the programme.

“This is not to make it competitive, but to help them understand their own capabilities,” Trivedi said. “We do not want students to have access and not use it.”

Asked about the information collected through the platform, Trivedi said MASK NextGen did not sell student data. She first said no data would be collected, but later said the platform could see usage details, an ID and possibly a student’s name. “We only see usage, an ID, maybe a name if at all, and how much they are playing the game. That is about it,” she said. Schools could track information separately at their discretion, she added.

Azharuddin said the government was giving the highest priority to student security. “We cannot let any untoward incident happen. At the end of the day, the boys and girls studying in these institutions have to be safe and sound. That is the most important thing.”

The proposed 20 TMREIS degree colleges would include 10 each for boys and girls. Asked when they could begin, the minister said, “It can happen anytime,” once the proposal was approved.