- Dubai Heights Academy, MIT Media Lab launch UAE’s first AI curriculum for school students, targeting 400,000 learners over 3 years.
- AI meets ethics: MIT-designed program to equip UAE students with coding, robotics, and responsible innovation skills.
- From Jibo robots in early years to GANs in senior grades, UAE's AI education push gains global edge with MIT collaboration.
Dubai Heights Academy in Dubai has embarked on a revolutionary partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, the first such AI-education initiative in the UAE. In the coming three years, approximately 400,000 students across the country are to be exposed to elements of this revolutionary venture though the pilot to start off will be with secondary students in Dubai Heights Academy.
Central to the program is a custom, project-focused AI curriculum crafted by MIT experts under the guidance of Professor Cynthia Breazeal, a social robotics and human–robot interaction pioneer. Breazeal, whose past projects include the award-winning social robot 'Jibo' noted that in addition to coding and hardware development, students will be surrounded by the ethical and societal aspects of AI. They will acquire through artifacts like a modified version of Scratch, MIT App Inventor, and robotics kits, learning about computational thinking, pattern recognition, debugging, and 'tinkering'.
Curriculum moves on to more advanced topics such as unsupervised machine learning and generative adversarial networks (GANs), where students learn to identify both the artful capability of such systems i.e., creating art or music and the danger, including deepfake technology and disinformation Breazeal emphasized the need to raise 'responsible, creative and ethical designers' of AI solutions that are rooted in practical applications
Notably, the partnership extends into younger age groups also. Years 1 and 2 students will work with 'Jibo' in a robot-augmented literacy corner. The robot is supplemented by an MIT consultant and tablet activities in language development, story exploration, emotion control, and imaginative play augmented by data retrieved from cameras to enable research and feedback.
This ambitious collaboration mirrors the UAE's national initiative to embed AI within education, not just to enhance technology literacy but to grow ethical awareness and social accountability. It resonates with wider ambitions to personalize learning, promote digital citizenship, and engage with international standards of AI education.
Dubai Heights Academy students who finish the programme can also be awarded with a certificate by MIT, in negotiations currently. With AI changing sectors globally, the move will put UAE students in a position to be educated, reflective creators well-positioned to dictate the future of technology with imagination and ethics.
