About Us

What We Do

Our mission is to equip Chicago community members with practical AI and digital literacy skills to participate confidently in our digital society while protecting themselves from related risks.

In order to achieve this, we work closely with non-profit/community/social service organizations who are committed to digital inclusion work. We create curriculum and resources, work with our partners to tailor them to their individual community, and deliver them together.

Our hope is to reach learners of all communities, especially those affected most by the digital divide. We are committed to accessibility across income levels, ethnicities, languages, and digital experience levels, and strive to create materials that satisfy this goal. We believe that engaging in conversation with our partners to understand their community’s needs allows us to create more specific, and hopefully accessible, resources.

The main way in which we work is by collaborating with community organizations to engage with community members. However, we soon hope to host our own workshops in order to reach more people.

One of our key goals is to develop an open-source repository of resources that is accessible to every organization and community member, and can be adapted to fit individual needs. Our first step towards this goal is making available some of our work through the Curriculum tab.

Digital and AI literacy are crucial in today's society

In the digital age, individuals should feel empowered to leverage technology tools to fully participate in society and connect with critical resources, such as healthcare benefits, employment opportunities, and educational resources. Grassroots solutions are crucial to expand digital inclusion and connect communities with technological infrastructure, resources, and skills.

With AI transforming the way that companies, online spaces, and government operate, it is essential for community members to gain AI fluency. AI fluency is no longer optional, but a core part of digital inclusion. Without integrating AI fluency into the digital inclusion curriculum, AI will exacerbate the digital divide, resulting in the "AI divide."

Equipping individuals with AI readiness skills empowers them to engage more confidently in AI-related conversations, recognize and challenge abuses of AI in both personal and civic contexts, and explore how AI can be meaningfully integrated into their personal and professional lives.

This task is nonpartisan: technology should not happen to individuals but rather for individuals.

Digital literacy efforts already exist in Chicago, but many organizations do not have the resources to integrate AI curriculum into their programming. DemystifyAI fills this gap by providing community members with a practical AI readiness curriculum, which is especially important for nonprofits. Our curriculum is designed with the everyday community member in mind, foregrounding lived experiences and community input to co-create interesting, relevant, and impactful curriculum.

Our Team

We are affiliated with the Chicago Digital Equity Coalition, Lake County Digital Equity Coalition, Cook County Digital Equity Coalition, and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. We have received a humble grant from the University of Chicago to conduct our work.

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