Winona State alum Justin Beatty ’10, a Nvidia employee, started the grant program to ensure WSU students are prepared in the new age of technology. More than $10,000 in grants are available for projects that either use AI to solve a challenge in the Winona community or incorporate AI into classroom learning.
With the emergence of AI, the ideas and possibilities for utilizing it in the real world are endless, and Winona State wants to encourage students to contribute where they can.
Last year, two students received $200 grants to carry out their projects in the local community.
Anton Kadlec ’28, a Business Administration major, had a vision to help cities maintain their hiking trails and walking paths.
The solution: create an AI bot that measures cracking distresses and roughness. With this data, cities can better understand the conditions of their trails and work to repair them rather than replace them.
“I wanted to make something that benefits the community overall. Not just creating a useless AI product that creates waste, but something that helped create more efficiency within the city and community and helped contribute to the safety of everyone,” says Kadlec.
Sandumini Kaldera ’27, a Management Information Systems major, worked with a partner to build the chat board Warrior AI, a go-to resource for students who need answers but don’t know where to look or who to contact.
Warrior AI uses information across Winona State’s website to serve immediate answers to questions, such as classes needed for a certain major or what different meal plans entail.
Their goal for the Warrior AI project was to make students’ lives easier, especially prospective or first-year students who have a lot of questions and can be easily overwhelmed by the amount of information given to them.
Kaldera says that despite having no previous experience working with AI, this grant allowed her to learn the tools and to collaborate with other students and professionals navigating the growing field.
Both students now work as ambassadors for Winona State’s AI Innovation & Engagement Fund, working to promote the program and connect with students who are curious about it.
Kadlec and Kaldera encourage everyone with any level of interest in AI to apply for the grant.
AI applications and subscriptions can be expensive, so this is a great opportunity for anyone who like coding or want to learn how to work with AI to be able to do so without the out-of-pocket expense.
The ambassadors say that their advice to those looking to apply is to just pick an interest of theirs and run with it, experimenting with ways to incorporate new technology into their lives and their community:
“AI is growing at an accelerated pace,” says Kaldera. “It’s not just limited to technology. It’s been integrated by other fields as well, such as fashion, biology, manufacturing, and finance—you name it.”
The grant program wants different fields to put their own spin on AI and for students to break the grounds of the growing technology.
The application for the AI Innovation & Engagement Fund grant is now open and closes on Sept. 20. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis until funds are exhausted.
All Winona State students and faculty are welcome to apply for this chance to shape the role that AI has on campus and in the Winona community.