Earlier this month, the Mark Cuban Foundation took center stage at The Global Impact Forum in Pittsburgh, a multi-day event on how AI and automation are reshaping education and economic development. Chief Learning Officer Charlotte Dungan opened the forum’s education track by showcasing the Foundation’s work in AI education, a fitting precursor to Mark Cuban’s fireside chat with Justin Aglio.
“I was happy to feature the work of the Mark Cuban Foundation as a precursor to Mark’s fireside chat with Justin Aglio, the godfather of AI education,” said Charlotte Dungan. “I was able to showcase what the foundation does to advance AI education: Teens + AI + Partners = Tomorrow Transformed.”
During the discussion that followed, Cuban hammered home a clear message: the future belongs to those who understand artificial intelligence. He stressed that the next wave of successful entrepreneurs will need to learn AI early to stay ahead. Far from fearing technological change, he urged students and educators to embrace AI as a tool for opportunity.
Cuban advocated for giving young people safe, age-appropriate AI platforms, envisioning kid-friendly versions of tools like ChatGPT, so that even a student in a low-income school can start thinking like an entrepreneur if they have access to AI on a library computer or a phone at home.
Several Pittsburgh-area students from Mark Cuban Foundation AI Bootcamp were also invited to attend the Global Impact Forum. Their presence created a meaningful bridge between the national conversations happening onstage and the real hands-on work they’ve been doing throughout the bootcamp. It was a chance for them to see how their local experience fits into a larger movement to broaden access to AI education.
Carlow University in Pittsburgh hosted the Foundation’s latest AI Bootcamp for dozens of high schoolers, one of over 30 such camps across the country this year. The program, launched in 2019, introduces teens from underserved communities to the fundamentals of AI, including machine learning, computer vision and natural language processing, with no coding experience required.
Over a series of 20 hours of instruction, each bootcamp offers a beginner-friendly dive into AI applications in everyday life and various industries. Thanks to generous support, every student attends free of charge, lowering the barriers to entry for early STEM exposure.
While participants do get hands-on with coding exercises, the emphasis is on creative problem-solving and ethical thinking rather than technical mastery alone. “All students deserve the opportunity to harness AI as a tool for learning, creativity and career success,” Dungan noted in her keynote, highlighting the Foundation’s commitment to building a better future through high-quality AI education.
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