MIT Stephen A Schwarzman College of Computing awards seed grants to Cynthia Breazeal and Pattie Maes

MIT's dean for digital learning Cynthia Breazeal and MIT Media Lab's professor of media technology Pattie Maes have won Stephen A Schwarzman College of Computing seed grants for their research projects. Under the theme, 'Artificial Intelligence (AI) for augmentation and productivity', seven projects were chosen in this year's seed grant funding competition which explore how AI and human-computer interaction can be leveraged to enhance modern work spaces to achieve better management and higher productivity.

As dean for digital learning, Cynthia collaborates with the Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL), which aims to democratise education and transform universities into centres that innovate the future of work and economic growth. Cynthia and her collaborators were chosen for their project 'Generative AI augmented software tools to democratise programming'. Reflecting the transformation that generative AI has brought about in software careers, this project seeks to stimulate a transformation in computing education for those who have no prior technical training by creating a software tool that would eliminate the need for learners to write or handle code when creating applications.