IIT-Delhi startup launches DIY artificial intelligence kits for school students

An IIT-Delhi startup has come up with Do-IT-Yourself (DIY) educational kits for school students to learn the basics of artificial intelligence (AI).

The kit includes many technical novelties such as AI computing-engine, friendly AI training or inference applications and real-world AI actuation circuit boards.

According to officials at IIT-Delhi, when taught the conventional way, the field of AI requires a school student to have a rigorous background and training in topics such as advanced mathematics, data-science, and computer-programming.

"Like any evolving technology, there exists a gap between the promise, the hype, the capability and practical reality of AI. What makes this gap wide is the lack of resources to easily develop an intuitive insight on topics such as AI at an early stage. The motivation behind BUDDHI kit is to help young school students learn the practical aspects of a complex topic like AI in a friendly and simple manner," Manan Suri, professor at IIT-Delhi, said.

"Build Understand Design Deploy Human-like Intelligence (BUDDHI) kit is the first-of-its-kind highly interactive and easy to use DIY educational kit that can be used to quickly learn the basics of AI and build AI based solutions for real-world problems without any prior domain knowledge or training," he added.

The components of the kit have been designed keeping in mind compatibility with mainstream electro-mechanical devices. The kit is accompanied with a rich learning ecosystem that includes a high quality AI handbook, practical DIY AI projects, lessons, exercises, presentations and videos, Suri said.

The product developed by "CYRAN AI Solutions" was launched by IIT-Delhi Director V Ramgopal Rao on Monday.

"IIT-Delhi is taking centre stage in AI-related research and development in the country. Development in indigenised AI hardware and software is critical," Rao said.