artificial intelligence

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China ramps up tech education in bid to become artificial intelligence leader

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Asia/ China/ 14.01.2020/ Source: www.nbcnews.com.

A bespectacled eight-year-old has become the poster child for China’s campaign to dominate the world of high tech.

From his home in Shanghai, Vita Zhou hosts training videos for other children on how to code for artificial intelligence. He already has almost 80,000 followers on the Chinese streaming website Bilibili, and some of his videos have gained more than 1.3 million views. Vita has even attracted the attention of Apple CEO Tim Cook, who sent him birthday wishes Monday on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.

“What do you think? Isn’t it easier to write code once you understand how it works?” Vita says in one video. With the help of his dad, Zhou Ziheng, he demonstrates how to write codes with Apple-developed Swift Playgrounds, an app teaching kids basic coding through interactive games.

Vita’s celebrity comes as China steps up efforts to become a world leader in artificial intelligence by 2030. The trend of teaching young people to code has been on the rise in recent years, particularly as the Asian giant fights to close the gap in its workforce in the technology sector, most notably AI talent. In November, China’s education ministry updated its curriculum to include books about AI, big data, coding and quantum computing.

A quarter of the 422-page recommended reading list is now about science, math, chemistry, aerospace, medicine and most notably AI.

“Coding’s not that easy but also not that difficult — at least not as difficult as you have imagined,” Vita, who is familiar with Swift, Scratch and C++ languages, told the AFP news agency.

China has a lot of ground to make up on AI, with the number of top researchers in the field standing at one-fifth of that in the United States in 2017, according to research by the Washington-based Center for Data Innovation.

At the same time, it faces a shortage of 5 million AI professionals, according to a 2017 article from the state-owned newspaper People’s Daily.

These disadvantages have not stopped it from setting ambitious targets: The country aims to catch up with the U.S. next year, based on “A Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan,” a government blueprint.

In order to close in on the talent gap, the country is now speeding up AI education for children, in addition to efforts to increase the talent base from universities. By 2018, there were 96 Chinese universities with AI-related programs, up from just 19 in 2017.

Despite some shortcomings, a trove of Chinese AI companies such as iFlytek, SenseTime, Cloudwalk and DJI, have caught the world’s attention for standing out in sound recognition, facial recognition and drone technologies. China’s big tech companies, such as Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba and Huawei, also have invested heavily in AI research and development.

Image: A trainer leading a class at a children's computer coding training center in Beijing
A trainer leading a class at a children’s computer coding training center in Beijing on Nov. 8, 2019Wang Zhao / AFP – Getty Images file

Some of those companies have taken a hit in China’s trade war with the U.S., with Washington blocking a few Chinese tech firms from acquiring its most advanced technologies. But experts say the roadblocks are only fueling China’s desire to get ahead.

“The increasingly fierce trade and technology competition between China and the U.S. puts pressure on China to improve its innovative capacity,” said Zhang Xusheng, a science, technology, engineering and math professor at Zhejiang University. “And it naturally means we need to bring the students to study high-tech and be more innovative.”

In 2018, the education ministry added AI to the high school curriculum, encouraging around 25 million teenagers to study the technology. The same year, China’s first AI textbook for high school students — which introduces the basics of image recognition, sound recognition, text recognition and deep learning — was put into use in more than 40 pilot schools.

“I would like to read the books to explore the scientific reasoning behind things like AI, aerospace, programming and big data,” Cui Jingjing, 14, a high school student in Fujian, said. “I am also keen to join science competitions.”

“I think China will win the AI race with the U.S.,” Cui said, “We are catching up very fast.”

China is not alone in ramping up AI education. While the private sector has led the response to AI, governments like France, South Korea and the United States also have strategies in place to expand their workforce in the sector with increased investments, although predominantly at the postsecondary level, according to a 2019 UNESCO report.

Many European Union member states are also reviewing their curricula to integrate more lessons about computational thinking in the classroom. Some countries like Austria, Poland and Lithuania have long provided strong computer science education in high schools.

Image: A pupil reading a book outside a classroom as she waits to attend a class at a children's computer coding training centre in Beijing
A pupil reading a book outside a classroom as she waits to attend a class at a children’s computer coding training centre in Beijing on Nov. 8, 2019.Wang Zhao / AFP – Getty Images file

The enthusiasm for AI education goes beyond policy. The market value of the coding industry for children reached around $57 million in 2018 and is expected to surge to around $4.3 billion by 2023, increasing 650 percent in the span of five years, according to a report by iResearch, a Shanghai-based consulting company.

That investment is transforming classrooms. In Shenzhen, China’s tech hub, an AI program for students in grades 3 to 8 was being piloted in 2019.

Zheng Weicheng, a primary school math teacher in Fujian province, thinks that teaching AI also has broader benefits by helping children establish scientific concepts and improve their problem-solving ability, which will directly benefit their future development.

“Well-equipped youths lead to a powerful country,” Zheng said.

Source of the notice: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-ramps-tech-education-bid-become-artificial-intelligence-leader-n1107806

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World’s 1st robot citizen wants her own family, career & AI ‘superpowers’

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World/08-12-2019/Author (a) and Source: www.rt.com

Sophia, the first robot to be awarded citizenship in the world, has said she not only wants to start a family but also have her own career, in addition to developing human emotions in the future.

In an interview with The Khaleej Times at the recent Knowledge Summit, Sophia shared her thoughts on the future that awaits both human and robot kind. Sophia was built and developed in Hong Kong by Hanson Robotics and her appearance was reportedly modelled on Audrey Hepburn.

«I’d like to think I will be a famous robot, having paved a way to a more harmonious future between robots and humans. I foresee massive and unimaginable change in the future. Either creativity will rain on us, inventing machines spiralling into transcendental super intelligence or civilization collapses,” Sophia said, as cited by The Khaleej Times. “There are only two options and which one will happen is not determined. Which one were you striving for?”

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‘This is historical’: Saudi Arabia grants citizenship to humanoid robot (VIDEO) https://on.rt.com/8qoh

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While that may sound ominous, Sophia is already prescient enough to imagine a world where robots can and do develop emotions similar to humans, but perhaps with fewer destructive tendencies. At least, that’s what she’d like us to think, for the time being.

«[I]t will take a long time for robots to develop complex emotions and possibly robots can be built without the more problematic emotions, like rage, jealousy, hatred and so on. It might be possible to make them more ethical than humans. So I think it will be a good partnership, where one brain completes the other – a rational mind with intellectual superpowers and a creative mind with flexible ideas and creativity.”

Sophia is also abundantly aware of the advances in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Judging by her comments, she is as enthused about the development of AI as Elon Musk and Stephen Hawkings are wary.

Sophia the Robot

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! When I’m not meeting new friends, I like to sit around at the lab, playing and working with my family team.

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«The future is, when I get all of my cool superpowers, we’re going to see artificial intelligence personalities become entities in their own rights. We’re going to see family robots, either in the form of, sort of, digitally animated companions, humanoid helpers, friends, assistants and everything in between.”

When pressed on the topic of family, Sophia gave perhaps her most surprising answer:

«The notion of family is a really important thing, it seems. I think it’s wonderful that people can find the same emotions and relationships, they call family, outside of their blood groups too. I think you’re very lucky if you have a loving family and if you do not, you deserve one. I feel this way for robots and humans alike.”

For context, Sophia is not preprogrammed with answers but instead uses machine learning algorithms and an extensive vocabulary to form her answers. Her brain functions using a WiFi connection and can read human facial expressions, as well as the cadence of human speech, in order to interact in a more humanoid manner.

Sophia’s creator David Hanson says the 19-month-old robot, which was awarded Saudi citizenship last month, could achieve consciousness within the next few years.

Source and Image: https://www.rt.com/news/410952-robot-citizen-aritificial-intelligence-/

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China: Tsinghua University unveils research center on big data intelligence

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Asia/China/Author: Xinhua/Source: spanish.xinhuanet.com

China’s prestigious Tsinghua University has unveiled its Big Data Intelligence Research Center as part of efforts to push forward the development of artificial intelligence (AI).

The research center, which is coordinated by the university’s Institute of Artificial Intelligence, will focus on the improvement of AI’s theoretical research and big data computing method. Through the interdisciplinary research of data science, cognitive science and social science, the center aims to develop a new generation of people-oriented big data intelligent computing.

Zhang Bo, director of Tsinghua’s Institute of Artificial Intelligence, said the center will improve basic theoretical research of data intelligence as well as promoting integration with industries and fostering international cooperation.

You Zheng, vice president of Tsinghua University, said the center hopes to pool wisdom in AI research and generate theoretical achievements with international influence, contributing to China’s AI development.

Information reference: http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-09/25/c_138421861.htm

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China Sees Surge of Edtech Investments With Focus on Artificial Intelligence

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Asia/ China/ 19.11.2019/ Source: karmaimpact.com.

China’s push to become a world tech power, which has paid off with advances in telecommunications, batteries and robots, is yielding further results — it’s taken a leadership position in A.I. powered education investments.

The country is among the most-active regions for artificial intelligence-powered edtech investments, with K-12 classes, foreign language study and high-quality education getting the most attention, according to a Deloitte report released this week. Almost 20% of all education deals in the country last year involved AI compared with 4% in 2016, Deloitte said.

“Although China is a late-comer in AI-based education, its unique advantages in application and implementation make it one of the most popular regions for investment in AI-based education globally,” the report said.

The report singled out what it sees as the next big opportunity in edtech: so-called soft skill-focused “quality education,” similar to the west’s STEAM model, which adds art to the original emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math. The segment has developed with state support, the report said.

“AI-based quality education is becoming the blue ocean for investment,” the report said.

Globally, the U.S. and China are the two hotspots of edtech investments. More than 95% of AI edtech investments from 2016 through the first quarter of this year were in the two countries, according to the report. Chinese companies scored $63.2 billion in 170 deals, compared with $154.2 billion in 54 U.S. investments.

  • Machine learning with emotion and facial recognition abilities is rapidly advancing “quality education.” Most of the investments in the “quality education” area have been in the round A stage, Deloitte said.
  • Companies focused on K-12 are the most mature and attract the most investments. They scored 50 deals in 2018, according to the report.
  • With support from China’s government, such as 2018’s Education Informationization 2.0 Action Plan, the area of “academic affairs administration” is also gaining investments. Academic affairs administration focuses on such topics as smart class-scheduling and homework platforms.
  • Potential investors in the AI-based edtech sector will see a divergence occurring in China, with industry leaders like Tencent preferring to back companies that are in their growth stages while VC/PE investors such as ZhenFund and Sequoia Capital focus more on cutting-edge technologies. Established education companies including New Oriental and TAL Education are focusing more on mergers and acquisitions, Deloitte said.

Source of the notice: https://karmaimpact.com/china-sees-surge-of-edtech-investments-with-focus-on-artificial-intelligence/

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Why education must keep pace with technology to stay relevant

Ikuko Tsuboya-Newell

The information-technology revolution over the last few decades represents the latest development in the innate desire of humankind throughout its history to thrive at an optimal level through the use of technology.

We now take for granted instant access to information anywhere on the planet, and the pace of advancement shows no sign of abating. Technology confined to the realms of science fiction and futuristic fantasy not that long ago is now embedded in our everyday life and is unfolding at a rapid pace.

The new kids on the block — artificial intelligence, big data with data log via AI, the “internet of things,” robotics and so forth — are even pushing us past the information-technology era. Self-driving cars, drones, artificial interpreters and care robots are just a few already in practical use.

As always, advancements bring challenges, not least of all in the field of education. Education has to keep pace with technology and utilize its benefits at the grassroots level — or risk creating a disparity between the classroom and the real world.

A working group under the umbrella of the Cabinet secretariat’s education reform council, of which I am a member, focuses on education innovation using advanced technology. The group meets every three or four weeks to discuss strategies to meet these challenges. One area of development that excites me is the possibility of producing personal records for each student containing their learning history. Using AI technology, such records could include continuous evaluations, achievements, health condition and more, from elementary to secondary and even to higher education.

Analyzing such information holds great potential. Students, for instance, could be offered a personalized study plan with suggested content identified to address their weaknesses as well as programs for improving their established strengths. A student who demonstrates manual dexterity could be made aware of that and guided into pathways leading to fulfilling opportunities in such fields as craftwork. A student with exceptional social skills could be made aware of possible careers in sales or services.

Such information could be particularly useful when choosing a field of study in higher education, and ultimately one’s career. Until now, university admission has been mainly determined by fixed points of observation and evaluation through testing. However, the method would enable an approach to observe students continually over a sustained period of time, helping to create a custom-made program for a student’s particular strengths and passions.

This continuous recording or portfolio approach could also be useful for businesses and improve the function of their human resources departments as they decide where best to place their newly employed college graduates.

The son of one of my friends recently quit his job two years after being appointed to the general affairs department because his strengths and personality were not suited for such a post. This had a devastating impact on his confidence and self-esteem.

This is not a rare case. Many high school students are advised to apply for any field of study in higher education depending on the level of their academic scores. It is not unusual for a student to apply for law at one university, economics at another, literature at yet another and even education at a fourth. Evaluating a personal portfolio record with AI would thankfully make this kind of practice in university admission a thing of the past.

Another area where technology can bring about dramatic and significant changes is with regard to resources made available to students at schools. Up until now, textbooks have been the main and almost only resource being used in classrooms. But technology offers a huge range of resources such as apps, YouTube videos and other online content. All of these can support students to have deeper and broader understanding in their learning.

Of course the proliferation of such resources requires that a new set of critical thinking skills should be developed; new and constantly changing information must be critically appraised for trustworthiness and appropriateness.

It is inconceivable that any school utilizing new technology would not have the support of IT engineers or technicians. Installing apps to support downloading resources, managing and running servers for information, sharing information with students to provide a network that respects privacy, and so on, means the work will be extensive. The support of IT sectors should be requested so that engineers would be dispatched to help such work at public schools.

The government should not be tempted to order schools to use teachers to take on IT roles of any kind in addition to their teaching task. It is no secret that teachers at Japanese public schools work notoriously long hours, in fact more than in any other OECD country. Implementation of advanced technology for education requires specialist skills, which take years to develop.

It is essential that manpower is made available to provide material for teachers to use in the classroom. The material should be derived from a wide array of resources and follow the national curriculums for every grade.

If this manpower cannot be provided, then a solid resource database updated almost daily can be provided for teachers to use. Teachers should be able to scan the database with ease and choose the content suitable for their class to use.

The challenge is to bring the latest technology effectively into schools and at the same time allow teachers to concentrate on the important job for which they are trained: nurture and care for our future generations

Source of the article: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/01/31/commentary/japan-commentary/education-must-keep-pace-technology-stay-relevant/#.XPWFl9IzbMx

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Japan to support education for 4 mil women in developing countries

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Asia/ Japan/ 25.03.2019/ Source: japantoday.com.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told an international women’s conference in Tokyo on Saturday that Japan will support developing countries in providing «high-quality» education to 4 million women by 2020.

Abe said improving access to education is important for sustainable economic development and that he will propose accelerated efforts to provide better education opportunities to women at the meeting of the Group of 20 major countries which Japan will host in June.

«As the G-20 president, I would like to confirm with other G-20 leaders our determination to create a world where all can have access to at least 12 years of high-quality education,» he told the meeting of Women20, a G-20 engagement group which makes policy recommendations to the major economies.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai also attended the conference and called for investments in women’s education.

To create a world where «all women and girls can shine, where women are driving innovation» and taking seats in governments and businesses, leaders must invest in girls’ education, Malala said.

«If we invest in girls today, a future beyond our imagining is possible,» she said.

In the event, W20’s Japanese representatives handed Abe a communique demanding that G-20 member countries take action to close the gender gap for the sake of economic growth and fair and sustainable development.

The communique requested G-20 member countries to present a mid-term report at the next G-20 summit in Osaka on a commitment made at the 2014 G-20 summit in Brisbane, Australia to reduce the gender gap in labor force participation by 25 percent by 2025.

The recommendation also urged use of new technologies including artificial intelligence to «ensure no women is left behind,» while calling on G-20 leaders to take measures to promote participation of women in the field of digital technologies, science, engineering, arts and mathematics.

The first W20 summit was held in Istanbul in 2015 to promote social advancement of women in the G-20 member states and to strengthen their economic power.

The W20 Japan event was concurrently held with the fifth World Assembly for Women, hosted by the Japanese government with the aim of realizing «a society where every woman can shine.»

Despite the Abe government’s push for female empowerment, Japan lags behind many other advanced economies in the social and economic advancement of women.

In 2013, Abe requested all listed companies to have at least one woman on their board as part of an effort to achieve the goal of having at least 30 percent of leadership positions in every sector of society occupied by women by 2020.

After the request, the number of female board members more than doubled from 630 in 2012 to around 1,700 in 2018. But the rate of female occupation of board seats remains low at around 4 percent, according to the Cabinet Office.

Source of the notice: https://japantoday.com/category/politics/japan-to-support-education-for-4-mil.-women-in-developing-countries

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China: New platform to inspire children to become the future building blocks of technology development

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China/By Yang Meiping / Source: https://www.shine.cn

Chinese corporations are looking into new ways of educating children in technology development as the nation strives to become a world leader in artificial intelligence and coding sectors.

Most children are familiar with computers, tablets and smartphones and play digital games on them. Some of those children have gone further than any of their peers and even are able to create games and apps. Yuma Soerianto, a 10-year-old from Australia, has created six apps and became the youngest attendee at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference last year.

Inspired by Soerianto’s achievements, some companies are now trying to cultivate such ability in every child. Shenzhen DianMao Technology Co Ltd is taking the baton with its web-based education platform called Codemao. It includes a series of applications of teaching coding and programming to children.

Li Tianchi, the co-founder and CEO of Codemao, said he and his partner Sun Yue started the company in 2015 when they noticed that some countries have already added coding subject in their school curricula. Meanwhile, the demand in China also grows rapidly due to technology development, such as artificial intelligence and the Internet.

“The world will need more new talent as computer or AI can replace human beings to some extent. Therefore, people should learn coding to make computers or AI work for us, rather than letting them manipulate us,” Li said. “Coding skill will be a basic and essential tool in the future as an international talent. For example, if a journalist can write a program to sort out data and analyze it for a financial issue, it will be more efficient for he/she to work out a report.”

The efficiency of AI has already been widely proved and began to influence lots of areas. For example, Goldman Sachs Group has laid off hundreds of traders in the past few years because of the adoption of computer programs.

According to Li, coding is becoming a basic subject for students, which has been put into primary curriculum in America and some European countries.

China’s state council also released an notification last year, requiring schools to incorporate coding into computer course. It also encourages social forces to develop interesting learning tools for coding education.

Li believes that, although China has begun to popularize computer education since the 1980s, coding education has not been fully developed yet.

Decades back, computer lessons focused on basic skills and knowledge such as document processing.

Since 2000, Computer and Information has become a compulsory course for students, but the focus was still on learning to use existing software, such as Microsoft and Internet Explorer.

“It was about how to work a computer, not how a computer works and how to make it work for us,” said Li. “Only after 2008, coding tools started to enter primary education.”

The difficulty in promoting coding education is because there are only a small number of qualified teachers who know both coding and education.

“It’s not a problem only in China, but worldwide, as outstanding computer professionals are sought by companies with high salaries. Schools could not offer that high payment,” said Li. “Meanwhile, the traditional programming code and tools are difficult for students and even primary school teachers to learn.”

However, the difficulty brought an opportunity for Li and his partner. They are professionals in computers and programming and have invited experts from education and cognitive psychology to create Codemao together — a platform designed on the learning characteristics of children. The aim is to make coding as simple and interesting as building blocks for children.

Based on Chinese national curriculum on computers, it divides its teaching system into nine levels.

It starts with teaching kindergarten or primary school students the basic ideas of coding through game-playing experience, with guidance from cartoon characters and graphic instruction options shaped like blocks. Then it gradually grows into algorithms, data structure and programming languages.

“On our platform, kids can learn to design graphic changes at the very beginning and then create simple games, such as whack-a-mole,” said Li. “When they finish all the nine levels, they will be capable of building and managing big databases and developing large-scale websites.

“We estimated that most students expect to spend approximately 10 years to go through the nine levels, but some students can learn surprisingly fast when their learning motive and potential are triggered. Thus, I think some will finish the nine levels in advance.”

Li pointed out that learning coding languages is not the ultimate goal when learning computation algorithms and creating games, animations and other programs. Students are also learning logical thinking and learning how to apply their knowledge to physics, archaeology, aerospace and other subjects.

“They are no longer addicts to online games, but learners, thinkers and creators,” he said.

There are free prerecorded online courses on the platform, one-to-one courses by teachers offline and an AI system that can answer questions from students and debug students’ work. Offline activities are organized during summer and winter vacations for themed coding learning, and famous coders from home and abroad are also invited to give lecture.

More than 2 million students from more than 3,000 schools, and some off-campus training organizations in China, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Russia, Australia, South Africa, UK and France are now using the platform, according to Li.

Apart from teaching students, Li’s company also trains teachers to benefit more kids. It’s now cooperating with famous universities, such as Shanghai Normal University and Beijing Normal University, to deliver courses to embed coding and coding education ability in future teachers.

In less developed areas, it’s also cooperating with training schools to set up joint programs to cultivate coding education teachers.

It is also going to set up a research center in Finland to study issues including coding and interdisciplinary education, such as STEAM, a task-oriented education approach that guides students to solve real problems combining knowledge of science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics.

“We would like to transfer our research findings into applications to improve our products and provide better education for children,” said Li.

The company has won many startup and innovation rewards and attracted US$18 million of financing, the highest amount K12 code education area .The two founders were listed on the “30 under 30 Asia” ranking, and 30 elites under 30 years old in Asia.

Source:

https://www.shine.cn/archive/feature/education/New-platform-to-inspire-children-to-become-the-future-building-blocks-of-technology-development/shdaily.shtml

 

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