A short intro (Week 0) plus ten hands-on sessions, each about 1.5–2.5 hours. No code, no installs — just a phone or laptop, a curious mind, and Indian context throughout. Every session ends with an artifact you ship to your public profile.
A 15-minute onboarding before your real sessions begin. Meet AI Buddy — your AI tutor — and discover the most useful trick of the whole course. AI Buddy can help you with anything from your regular school day, in Hindi, before we even teach you what AI is.
AI Buddy speaks Hindi. Try it with your toughest school subject — photosynthesis, the Mughal empire, why the Indus river changed course. Whatever you ask in school, ask it here in your own words.
Learning objectives
- ›Open AI Buddy and ask your first question in your own words
- ›Learn the simplest rule of asking — be specific
AI is not coming in the future. It is already in five apps on your family's phone right now. Today we hunt for it. We make a poster. We give it to AI Buddy and we ask why each one is "AI" and not just "software".
We use only Indian apps and Indian examples — UPI fraud detection, Swiggy / Zomato food recommendations, Google Maps in Bengaluru traffic, IRCTC's autocomplete, your phone's Hindi keyboard. These are the AI systems used by 800 million Indians, every day, mostly invisibly.
Learning objectives
- ›Spot 5 apps on a family phone that use AI
- ›Describe in one sentence what each AI is predicting
- ›Build a one-page digital poster of your findings
- ›Submit the poster to your public profile
Lessons
- ·AI is hiding in your phone45m
- ·Audit your family phone45m
- ·Make your "AI in my phone" poster30m
Portfolio piece — AI in my phone — my poster
A one-page poster of 5 apps on a family phone where you found AI hiding. Drawn by hand or made digitally — either is fine. The five sentences matter more than the design.
Today you become an AI teacher. You will train an AI to tell apart 3 things you have at home — 3 dals, 3 toy cars, or 3 different hand signs. You will also discover the most important rule in all of AI — more examples means a smarter AI.
We use what's already in your kitchen — toor dal, urad dal, chana dal. If you don't have these at home, hand signs work just as well — fist, peace sign, thumbs up. The rule we discover today is the same rule UIDAI used to train Aadhaar to recognise hundreds of millions of fingerprints.
Learning objectives
- ›Train an AI image classifier from scratch using Teachable Machine
- ›Discover that more examples make the AI smarter
- ›Save your trained model and share it with AI Buddy
- ›Write 3 lines about what you built
Lessons
- ·What does it mean to teach a machine?45m
- ·Train your first AI45m
- ·More examples = smarter AI30m
Portfolio piece — My first trained AI
Your first piece of AI you can show off. A 3-class image classifier you trained yourself on Teachable Machine. The 30-example version, not the wobbly 5-example version.
This week you learn the secret of getting great answers from AI — be clear, give an example, and ask again until it's perfect. It's like texting a very smart friend who needs your help to help you back.
Pick from real-world Indian examples — asking AI about cricket rules, dadi's dal recipe, IRCTC train times, or how to write a birthday message in Hindi. The same skill that makes AI answer you better today is what engineers use to build AI products at Flipkart and Swiggy.
Learning objectives
- ›Tell the difference between a vague question and a clear question
- ›Use the "give an example" trick to get much better AI answers
- ›Ask AI to improve its own answer — the ask-again loop
- ›Submit your best "engineered" question and the AI's reply
Lessons
- ·Be clear — say exactly what you want45m
- ·Show an example, then ask again to improve45m
- ·Your best question30m
Portfolio piece — My best engineered question
Your best question — carefully designed using all three tricks: clear, example, and ask-again. Submit the full question you typed, the AI's final answer after at least one round of improvement, and 3 lines about what you learned.
AI Buddy is like the smartest study partner you've never had — it never gets bored, never laughs at a question, and can explain anything from photosynthesis to long division in plain Hindi or English. This week you'll learn to ask it the right way: get a simple explanation, quiz yourself, build a memory story — and always double-check the answer, because AI can be confidently wrong.
A Class 7 student revising Chapter 1 of the NCERT Science textbook uses AI Buddy to get a simple explanation, asks it to quiz her on nutrients, builds a dadi-ki-dal memory story, and checks every answer before writing it in her notebook.
Learning objectives
- ›Ask AI Buddy to explain any topic at your level in simple words
- ›Use AI to quiz yourself and check what you actually remember
- ›Create a memory story to lock a hard fact in your head
- ›Develop the habit of always checking AI answers before trusting them
Lessons
- ·Explain it to me simply — then quiz me45m
- ·Memory stories, revision — and always check the answer45m
- ·Make your study helper30m
Portfolio piece — My AI-made study helper
A one-page study helper you built using AI Buddy on a real topic from your school syllabus.
It must have three parts: a simple explanation (checked against your textbook), one memory
story for the hardest fact, and a mini quiz with answers (any AI mistakes corrected by you).
You'll use a free AI image generator to make pictures from words — then discover what AI gets right, what it gets weird, and why. We warm up with Quick Draw (AI guessing your doodle) so you feel the same pattern-matching magic at work before stepping up to full image generation. The week ends with your personal AI image set — including one that came out wonderfully strange.
Quick Draw often doesn't know Indian doodles like a thali or bindi — and AI image generators can get Indian things hilariously wrong too, like giving a dosa the wrong shape or dressing everyone in Western clothes.
Learning objectives
- ›Use Quick Draw as a warm-up and connect it to how image-generation AI works
- ›Generate AI images safely using a free, age-appropriate tool
- ›Identify at least one image the AI got right and one it got weird
- ›Collect and share a small set of AI images with a short caption for each
Lessons
- ·AI guesses your sketch — warm-up round45m
- ·Make pictures with AI — safely45m
- ·Your AI picture set30m
Portfolio piece — My AI picture set — 3 good, 1 weird
A set of 4 AI-generated images — three where the AI got it right, one where it got something interestingly wrong. Each image has a one-line caption: what you asked for, what you got, and (for the weird one) why you think it went wrong.
This week you become a storyteller — with AI as your helper. You give the idea, the characters, and the heart. AI helps you draft, remix, and stretch the story. Together you write something that is truly yours — a poem about Diwali, a cricket match adventure, a mystery set in your dadi's village. The words come from you. The AI just helps you say them better.
A class of kids in Jaipur used AI Buddy to write a Diwali short story — one student gave the idea, another gave the characters, and together they made the AI draft and re-draft until it felt just right. The final story was read aloud in assembly. Every word was approved by the student. The AI was just the pen.
Learning objectives
- ›Understand that in AI co-writing, the human is always the author
- ›Use AI Buddy to draft, improve, and reshape a story or poem
- ›Add Indian settings, characters, and details to make the writing personal
- ›Finish and share a short AI-assisted story as a portfolio piece
Lessons
- ·You are the author, AI is the helper45m
- ·Poems, comics, twists — make it yours45m
- ·Your story — finish it and share it30m
Portfolio piece — My AI-assisted story
A short story, poem, or comic outline you wrote with AI Buddy as your helper. You gave the idea, the character, and the Indian setting. AI helped with the drafting. You gave feedback, changed details, and chose every sentence that stayed. The final piece is yours.
You built an image classifier in Week 2. Now you break it — on purpose. In three lessons you'll attack your own model 10 different ways, discover exactly why it fails, and write a one-page "model report card" listing every weakness you found. Finding flaws is a grown-up AI skill — today you become an AI tester.
Real Indian AI systems have failed this exact way — Aadhaar fingerprint mismatches for manual labourers, Hindi voice assistants that couldn't understand Bihari accents, and UPI fraud detection that blocked genuine festival-season payments. Every failure traced back to training data that didn't match reality.
Learning objectives
- ›Understand that every AI fails predictably — not randomly
- ›Break your Week 2 image classifier at least 5 ways (lighting, angle, out-of-distribution)
- ›Explain each failure using the training-data rule
- ›Write and submit a model report card listing your AI's weaknesses
Lessons
- ·Why finding AI mistakes is a skill45m
- ·Try 10 ways to fool your AI45m
- ·Write your AI's report card30m
Portfolio piece — My AI's model report card
A one-page report card listing 5+ ways your Week 2 image classifier fails. Each row names what you tried, what the AI said, why it failed (training data), and what would fix it. Shows you can find flaws — not just build things.
AI is amazing — but it can be wrong, it can be biased, and it doesn't know what's private. This week you learn three skills every smart AI user needs: check before you trust, protect your personal information, and be kind. You'll make a poster of your own AI safety rules to keep and share.
A student in Nagpur asked an AI chatbot who invented the game of kabaddi. The AI gave a confident, detailed answer — and it was completely made up. This week we learn exactly what to do in moments like that.
Learning objectives
- ›Explain why AI can give confident but wrong answers
- ›List at least three things that are never safe to type into an AI
- ›Describe one way to check whether an AI's answer is true
- ›Make a personalised "My AI Safety Rules" poster
Lessons
- ·AI can be wrong — check before you trust45m
- ·Be safe & kind45m
- ·Make your AI safety rules poster30m
Portfolio piece — My AI Safety Rules poster
A one-page poster of your personal AI safety rules — drawn by hand or made digitally. Three sections: how you'll check AI answers, what you'll never type into AI, and your kindness rule. The words matter more than the design.
You've built classifiers, generated images, written AI-assisted stories, and learned to study smarter with AI. Now you pick ONE big idea that uses any of those skills, plan it with AI's help, and make a first draft. Week 10 is the live showcase — this week is your runway.
A student in Pune decided to build a ripe-vs-unripe guava detector for her family's farm — she used what she learned in Weeks 2-3, planned it with AI Buddy, and had a first draft ready for the Week 10 showcase.
Learning objectives
- ›Look back at everything built in Weeks 2–8 and pick a favourite kind of project
- ›Choose one small, doable idea for a personal showcase project
- ›Use AI Buddy to plan the steps, decide what you'll make, and figure out what you need
- ›Produce and submit a first draft of the project alongside a written plan
Lessons
- ·Pick your idea45m
- ·Plan it with AI's help45m
- ·First draft30m
Portfolio piece — My showcase project — idea, plan, and first draft
Your Week 9 artifact has two parts: a written project plan (what you're making, step-by-step steps, what you need) and a first draft of the project itself. The first draft may be rough — a classifier link with 30 photos each, a set of 4 AI images, a rough story, or a set of 5 prompts. Polish comes in Week 10.
The final week of AIDE Explorer. You've trained classifiers, generated images, co-written stories, studied with AI, planned a project, and learned to keep yourself safe online. Now you pick your proudest creation from Weeks 2–9, polish it until it shines, and share it with three real people. This is your capstone — one project, one link, one proud moment.
Real Indian AI engineers keep a portfolio of their work — not just a CV, but real links to real projects they can demo in 30 seconds. When a 16-year-old in Pune shared her mango ripeness classifier with her school science teacher, it led to a spot in the district science fair. The project wasn't perfect. It was real, it was hers, and she could explain every part of it.
Learning objectives
- ›Look back at creations from across Weeks 2–9 and choose the one you're most proud of
- ›Polish the title, description, and visual so any viewer understands it in 5 seconds
- ›Submit the capstone to your public profile and share it with at least three real people
- ›Reflect on what you learned across the full course
Lessons
- ·Pick your proudest AI45m
- ·Polish your Showcase45m
- ·Showcase day — share it30m
Portfolio piece — Showcase — my proudest AI project
Your AIDE Explorer capstone. Pick the one creation from across Weeks 2–9 that you're most proud of — a classifier, a generated image set, a co-written story, a study helper session, or a project plan. Polish the title and description until any viewer understands it in 5 seconds. Submit it here with a link or image. This is the big card on your public profile — the first thing anyone sees when they visit aide.vcbeyond.org/p/<your slug>.