This past summer, the MIT Center for Constructive Communication, its closely affiliated non profit, Cortico, and GBH’s FRONTLINE hosted 11 Boston students, ages 16 -21 as FRONTLINE fellows for a six-week paid fellowship at MIT’s Media Lab. 

This fellowship program represented the first of FRONTLINE’s two-part Youth Civic Voices initiative. The second phase, funded by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, is being led by Cortico. The goal: to explore how best to engage young people in meaningful civic dialogue and storytelling while exploring how evolving AI technology can best be integrated into this process. Insights from the program will inform the creation of video shorts produced for FRONTLINE’s youth-oriented For the Record series. 

”AI is changing everyone’s life at lightning speed,” says MIT Professor Deb Roy, director of the MIT Center for Constructive Communication and co-founder and CEO of Cortico. “By combining youth-led dialogue with the storytelling power of short-form video—and then equipping young people with the AI tools they can control—we can make important inroads toward establishing a scalable model for engagement in authentic, inclusive public conversation.” 

Raney Aronson-Rath, editor in chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE, who began her affiliation with the MIT Media Lab more than a decade ago, reiterates how strong storytelling and technological expertise can be such a powerful combination. “For this summer’s curriculum we placed a special emphasis on AI and the long shadow it already casts in the fellows’ lives. We wanted to know how kids are thinking about AI: what are their concerns, their fears, but also what are the possibilities.” 

The fellows represented a wide range of backgrounds and fields of interest, including computer science, business, finance, economics, English, and journalism. All fellows received a stipend to ensure that they represented economic diversity. 

Every Wednesday, the fellows came to the Media Lab having watched a short- to medium- length video on a given topic. Then a special guest speaker led them through a cutting-edge area of technology related to the topic. Guest speakers included: Oscar winning documentary filmmaker David Fialkow, entrepreneur and Aaru co-founder Ned Koh, CCC alumnus and assistant professor of design and data analysis at Northeastern University Nabeel Gillani, Emmy winning investigative reporter and NYU assistant professor of journalism Hilke Schellmann, and Deb Roy.

After engaging with the speaker, the students recorded an audio diary of their experience and opinions. After the weekly session at MIT, they continued to engage through remote conversations. According to Jessica Massa, senior producer for FRONTLINE’s short documentaries, having this feedback is critical. “It’s so informative to be sitting with young people week in, week out, in this MIT setting as they share their thoughts, fears, and excitement around AI,” says Massa.

Fellow Erin Birdsong, a home-schooled high-school senior, observed that “we fostered an environment of compassion amid often uncomfortable disagreement. This fellowship has influenced me to use discussion frameworks to accelerate learning, trust, and growth.” Another fellow, Soliel Hayles, a sophomore at Brandeis University, found that “the engaged journalism part [is] like an empathetic lens [in]to how you center your story—being able to recognize the biases that you bring or exist within the context of the story that you’re telling—and being able to be fully transparent.”

“This effort is about more than youth engagement. It’s about shifting who gets to shape the public conversation about AI. We are exploring how public media can listen more deeply and respond more meaningfully to the next generation,” says Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou, principal research scientist and CCC’s head of translational research and practice. “That aligns with CCC’s broader mission: creating civic spaces where diverse voices can engage across differences, build understanding, and spark change, something our democracy urgently needs.”

The next step is to scale this effort for broader youth outreach. “The energy and agency we saw from Fellows this summer affirmed what’s possible when young people are given real space to lead conversations that matter to them. We will be expanding this effort into 10 libraries nationwide this fall, partnering with local communities to center youth voices, spark conversations on AI and civic life, and build a new model for listening that connects across geography and generations,” says Alex Kelly Berman, Cortico’s Chief Program Officer.

Hear audio clips from the fellows here: