AI accessibility empowering ordinary people

Youthful embrace

While many may still think that AI-driven creation is the exclusive domain of adults and experts, young children and adolescents are proving this belief wrong. At the Bund Hackathon AI Coding Competition, nearly 70 percent of more than 10,000 participants were aged under 18.

Xu Qianyi, 6, was one of the youngest participants in the competition. She developed an AI-powered, real-life scenario-based literacy tool named Jian Shi.

For many families, their children's transition from preschool to elementary school and helping them develop their literacy skills is a challenge. Working parents don't have the time to read to their kids, and children often forget new characters as quickly as they learn them. To address this challenge, Xu turned to AI tools and worked on developing Jian Shi in July.

The tool's core functions are different from traditional rote learning. When children see a new character, they can simply take a photo of it and link it to real-life situations to help memorize it.

Built-in flashcards help with reviewing characters and can consolidate recall.

Nine-year-old Ge Ruihang also focused on practical learning tools and won a second prize with his Geometry Lab.

The idea stemmed from the challenges Ge faced in his math studies. Many geometric theories and formulas are abstract and difficult to remember, so he built an interactive tool that allows users to test and verify concepts.

The lab, which Ge developed with AI tools in about two weeks, allows students to conduct hands-on experiments and verify results independently, helping them better understand principles of geometry.

The concept of Chen Xiaotong, a 14-year-old student from Shanghai, went beyond the classroom. Using Tencent WorkBuddy, she submitted an AI app for mountain rescues, which attracted the attention of professional rescue teams.

Chen said mountain rescues are a public issue that solve real-world problems and developing the app was "highly meaningful" to her.