Generative AI has vastly improved over the past few years and there are new online tools being developed at a rapid pace.
This lesson provides a resource for some of the generative AI tools that are available to assist you with different parts of your submission. We will only include tools that have a free tier or free option.
Wait! Are we allowed to use generative AI to help with our submission?
Yes, you ARE allowed to use chatbots and Gen AI to help you with your Technovation project. It will not affect your score. Technovation just wants to know who is using it and how.
How do you use a chatbot?
Chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini work like a conversation.
Unlike Google, which gives you websites based on your search words, a chatbot gives information in the form of a conversation. You ask it questions, providing it with necessary background information, and it responds with informative answers.
You can refine your question and give it more details, in order to get more helpful responses. It can often take many back and forth questions to get a useful response. The more specific you can be, with more information, the more useful the response will be.
What are some tips to remember when using AI tools?
- Don’t assume it is giving you accurate information. Check everything yourself with a trustworthy source!
- Recognize AI’s limitations. AI makes predictions based on what it’s seen before. YOU are the expert on your own situation and YOUR ideas will be most unique!
- Do no harm with your solution, remember to always have a positive impact. Here are a few things to watch out for:
- biased information
- inaccuracies
- data privacy concerns
- possible copyright issues
You do NOT have to use ChatGPT, Gemini, or any AI tools. It’s a set of tools that could be very helpful.
Here are some recommended generative AI tools that can be helpful for different parts of your Technovation project.
IDEATION
Chatbots like Gemini and ChatGPT can help you in your brainstorming on both your problem and your solution:
- Suggestions for problems around particular UN SDG’s
- Starting points for solutions to a particular problem to spark your own creative ideas
- Summarizing research papers and key ideas, collecting citations
- Some AI research tools: Elicit, Scholarcy, and Notebook LM (free versions may be limited)
- Show you what other solutions already exist for a given problem
- Help you build on your existing ideas to extend them or innovate more
Note that both ChatGPT and Gemini have free basic versions that should be sufficient to help you ideate for your project.
DESIGN
There are many tools that exists for both UI design and general design for things like logos and business materials. Note that the free tiers usually limit the number of designs you can generate. Here are some popular tools:
- Uizard – UI wireframes and prototyping
- Galileo AI – enter a text prompt to generate UI and copy to Figma or copy html code
- Canva Magic Design – generate images, videos, and presentation designs quickly with AI
- Midjourney – powered by ChatGPT, allows a free option if you click out of screen asking for a credit card
- SlidesAI – extension for Google slides that uses AI to generate and edit slide design and content
VIDEOS
Here are some popular video generating and video editing tools:
- Capcut – many free AI features like auto-captioning in different languages
- Canva Magic Design – can also generate videos
- Visla – generate videos by text description; also has video editing capability
AI alone is not sufficient to tell your team’s personal story in a video, so use it to help with editing, or to generate ideas. Remember to include team members in your videos!
CODING
There are many AI tools to help you code your app. The most advanced ones that can generate working apps will be using text-based languages.
- ChatGPT and Gemini –
- can generate code given a description of what you want to build and in what language
- really helpful in debugging errors in your code. Copy and paste your code and error and it will supply suggested fixes
- good for short snippets of code and also explaining how the code works
- can be helpful for App Inventor and Thunkable. Will provide instructions but will not generate actual code blocks for you.
- Github Copilot – works in text-based coding Integrated Developments (IDE) to assist with coding
- Amazon Q Developer – a plugin for your coding IDE that assists with many coding tasks
- Windsurf – downloadable editor that can generate code for a full app from a text description
Some coding assistants work within the IDE. Others require you to copy and paste suggested code. Take the time to learn from the assistant. Ask it to explain code so you can understand how it works yourself.
If you do use any of these or other generative AI tools, keep a list!
You will be asked to write about these tools in your Learning Journey.
