Fetch to Host Mark Cuban Foundation Artificial Intelligence Boot Camp for Madison Area High School Students

Fetch, Madison’s unicorn tech startup and the nation’s leading rewards app, will host a Mark Cuban Foundation Artificial Intelligence (AI) Bootcamp for high school students at No-Cost in the Fall of 2023. The AI Bootcamp in Madison will be targeted at underserved high school students (9^th-12^th grade) and will introduce these high school students to basic AI concepts and skills. Fetch is one of 28+ host companies selected to host camps across the US in Fall 2023.

The Fetch Bootcamp will be held over four consecutive Saturdays starting on October 14^th and ending on November 4^th. The bootcamp will run each Saturday from 1-5pm CT and if accepted, high school students must commit to attending all 4 sessions. The student and parent application are now open at markcubanai.org/fetchpr. Students do not need any prior experience with computer science, programming, or robotics to apply and attend.

With AI being a relevant topic on many news sources, students will learn what artificial intelligence is and is not, where they already interact with AI in their own lives, and the ethical implications of AI systems including but not limited to TikTok recommendations, smart home assistants, facial recognition, and self-driving cars to name a few. Participants will also learn how Large Language Models like ChatGPT are changing life as we know it by answering questions, telling original stories, and even writing computer code.

Students will benefit from volunteer corporate mentor instructors who are knowledgeable about AI, ML and data science and able to help students quickly understand material normally taught at a collegiate level. As part of the four-hour curriculum, students will work with open source tools each day to build their own AI applications related to Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing and Generative AI.

The Mark Cuban Foundation provides the bootcamp’s curriculum materials, trains corporate volunteer mentors, and recruits and scores applications for local student selected to attend camp. In addition, the Mark Cuban Foundation and Fetch work together to provide food, transportation, and access to laptops for students at no-cost throughout the duration of Bootcamp.

“It was a lot of fun, I learned things I didn’t even know were possible with A.I. and their real-world applications showed me just how much it will change our world.”
– Brandon B., 10th Grade, 2022 AI Bootcamp Participant

Founded by Mark Cuban in 2019, the AI Bootcamp initiative has hosted no-cost AI bootcamps for students across several US cities, including Dallas, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Atlantic City to name a few. The Mark Cuban Foundation has impacted 900+ students to date and has a goal to increase that number year over year.

Students interested in applying to the Mark Cuban Foundation AI Bootcamp should do so before Friday, September 15th, 2023 at markcubanai.org/fetchpr. To see our 2023 camp locations and to learn more about the Mark Cuban Foundation AI Bootcamps, please visit markcubanai.org/faq.