ENARIS - Education and Awareness for Intelligent Systems

The increasing digitalization and automation through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) of the working world (industry 4.0, Smart Logistics, Big Data, etc.) and our everyday life(assistance systems, smart devices, social media, etc.) posts great challenges for society and education. This ranges from building awareness, increasing acceptance and teaching thefoundations of the technology, to fostering a meaningful, creative usage as well as an assessment of threats, risks as well as opportunities and potentials. The program area ischaracterized by a few urban centers and a large number of rural regions. To prevent a brain drain from the program area as well as to ensure a sustainable and responsible usageof technology, young people with skills to understand and use these new technologies are required. AI applications in particular allow an added value away from urban centers orwithout access to natural resources. Stimulating enthusiasm as well as facilitating a basic understanding has to be done at an early age. This provides a sound basis for youngpeople’s decision to pursue a career (job, training, study) in an AI related sector. The project addresses these challenges at two levels: On the one hand, fostering young people’s(aged 10-14) interest in AI and facilitating a basic technical understanding at an early age. In this context, the integration of teachers and instructors, using a train-the-trainerapproach is the key and ensures a broad and sustainable dissemination. On the other hand, building awareness regarding social, economic and technical aspects and potentials of AIamong the general public (children, parents, apprentices, working persons, etc.) using open, low-threshold activities. Since the described challenges concern the entire program area,a cross-border project implementation is vital.