Our journey from a classroom pilot to a multi-university initiative
2018
First AI for Social Good pedagogy was born, piloted among 90 undergraduate business students at SJSU.
2019
Launched "Innovation Farm" – AI for Social Good Ideation competition among 90 SJSU undergraduate business students, joined by judges from the industry and government.
SJSU Undergraduate student Terri Lee's AI chatbot project presented at American Conference of Information Systems 2019.
SJSU Undergraduate student Sam Gupta's AI drones project won the 2nd place in Silicon Valley Innovation Challenge 2019.
SJSU Undergraduate student Sam Gupta's AI chatbot project presented at Pacific Conference of Information Systems 2019.
2020
"Innovation Farm" became an independent elective for management information systems concentration called "Digital Innovation".
SJSU undergraduate student Sam Gupta's AI drones project presented at American Conference of Information Systems 2020.
SJSU undergraduate students Tianjie Zhu, Michael Chiang, Linh Trac, Joshua Zanger, Alison Nguyen presented their project in ACM DIS 2020 Workshop on Weaving Healthy Behaviors into New Technology Routines.
10 SJSU undergraduate students submitted their projects to IBM Call for Code Global competition 2020.
2021
The AI4SG project went beyond SJSU and is joined by Cal Poly Pomona, CSU San Bernardino, CSU Long Beach, and CSU Chancellor's Office.
SJSU Undergraduate students Terri Lee, Tianjie Zhu, Sophia Liu, Linh Trac, Zizhen Huang published their project in the Chinese Conference on Computer Human Interaction 2021.
SJSU Students in Digital Innovation prototyped AI solutions for social issues during COVID-19 and featured at ABC7 News, IBM Blog.
SJSU Undergraduate student Terri's AI chatbot project presented at the CSU Student Research Competition 2021.
2022
The AI4SG received around $600K funding from the NSF IUSE program. We are grateful for NSF's support in this project.
The AI4SG project was successfully implemented in Dr. Gabriel Granco's undergraduate course at Cal Poly Pomona.
SJSU Undergraduate student Sam Gupta's AI project won the 2nd place in CSU Student Research Competition.
2023
The first CSU AI4SG Student Innovation Showcase was successfully held on May 10th 12–1pm. Check recording here.
Undergraduate students Tianjie Zhu and Simran Bhalla published their AI chatbot project in American Conference of Information Systems 2022, recognized as Best AMCIS 2022 Top 25% ERF Papers.
Drs. Hill and Chen presented two AMCIS papers about the AI4SG curriculum that were recognized as Best AMCIS 2023 Top 25% ERF Papers.
Dr. Granco presented a poster about AI4SG at AGU 2023.
Dr. Chen presented one ICIS paper in Hyderabad. The paper received Best Paper Nominee.
Dr. Chen was featured in the DiGGrowth Podcast.
2024
The 2nd Annual CSU AI4SG Student Innovation Showcase was held on May 8th 12–1pm.
Dr. Chen was featured in the IBM Business Schooled Podcast.
The AI4SG project was featured in the news of CSU Office of the Chancellors in September.
Dr. Granco was featured in CPP news for the AI4SG project in September.
Dr. Chen shared AI4SG in the CSU STEM-NET webinar in September.
Dr. Chen shared about AI4SG in the Accidental Geographer podcast with SJSU Provost.
Dr. Chen presented AI4SG in SJSU University Scholar Series in October.
The AI4SG student member Divija Puli represented LCoB and SJSU in NorCal Public Media's "Connect the Bay: AI Today" (2025).
Two student papers by Kiley Huynh, Anushka Nair, Hannah Maryam, and Ellie Shorten were presented at the American Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) 2025.
Dr. Chen gave a talk about the AI4SG project at San Jose Public Library in February 2025.
2026
A new MBA course, Strategic AI Innovation for Business and Society, was launched at SJSU as a spin-off of the AI4SG project.