The Bilbao Hub project “AI Saturdays” is a collaboration with the AI Saturdays Barcelona Hub project since the "AI Saturdays" community has grown to more than 30 cities. In the Bilbao Hub, we have worked towards bringing the initiative to the Basque Country (Bilbao + Donostia - San Sebastian).

AI Saturdays is a community-driven, non-profit and global movement aiming to make Artificial Intelligence education with the quality and rigor of the world’s best universities accessible to anyone, for free. AI Saturdays has structured coursework and study groups going through materials used in universities like Stanford, Berkeley, and UCL, which cover cutting-edge techniques in AI and deep learning. These study groups are held every Saturday, with structured materials and sessions targeted for people at all skill levels.

The hub created a learn-by-doing approach in which, after introducing the general concepts of AI programming, the fellows come together in teams and develop projects according to their passions. All the projects are open source and ideally, with a social focus.

Goals:

1. Create a community that sets a benchmark on AI in the Basque Country, since there have been lots of initiatives (RLadies, DataBeers, etc.) that have failed to persist.


2. Strengthen partnerships with the Basque Country's main universities and economic development agencies to create a formalized AI Bootcamp for everyone


3. Develop further courseworks in AI applications.

Our current impact:

1. We have started the AI bootcamp and all of our students are really happy: "We are receiving higher quality contents here than in the main universities of the Basque Country".


2. We have partnered with local economic development agencies and companies to boost the project.


3. The First Edition has been a total success - both Mentor and Organising team received a 9.5+/10 average rating from the students. We are building the Second Edition in two different cities (both in Donostia-San Sebastian & Bilbao).


4. AI Saturdays Euskadi is beginning to function as an attracting pole both for companies and for people interested on AI.