This summer, five teams of girls in the Play Like a Girl AI Leadership Lab spent four weeks identifying a real problem, and then building an AI-powered solution to solve it. At the closing Showcase, each team presented their project to a panel of judges, and two teams took top honors.
First place went to Team HER Voice, an AI-powered mentorship platform designed to connect middle and high school girls with women in STEM and AI. Second place went to Artful Intelligence, an AI tool that helps young artists turn their work into professional digital portfolios and connects them to scholarships and showcase opportunities.
Eighteen girls completed the program overall. What they built along the way says as much about the AI Leadership Lab’s mission as any survey result could. Every team answers one question: How can AI help close the gap for girls in STEM?
Why This Program Exists
Women hold only 22 percent of AI jobs today, and research consistently identifies the middle school years, especially the 8th to 9th grade transition, as the point where girls begin quietly stepping back from STEM. The AI Leadership Lab was built to sit right at that gap, pairing girls with AI professionals over four weeks to explore emerging technology and build something real, not hypothetical.
The results back it up. Girls saw their confidence and STEM belonging rise, and 77 percent said they now feel ready to use AI as a tool in school or a future job. The five projects below are what that confidence looked like in practice.
First Place: HER Voice
Team HER Voice set out to solve a problem its own members had lived: girls who want to explore AI and STEM careers often do not have access to female mentors, role models, or information about what those careers actually look like.
Their solution is an AI-powered mentorship platform. Girls share their interests and career goals, the AI recommends potential STEM mentors, and the platform suggests careers, activities, and learning opportunities, with group mentorship and virtual events built in. The team was intentional about the platform’s guardrails too, building it to recommend mentors based on interests and goals rather than stereotypes or gender-based assumptions.
Team HER Voice’s vision, in their own words: every girl should have the opportunity to see herself as a future innovator, creator, and leader in AI and STEM.
Second Place: Artful Intelligence
Built by two team members with support from their mentor, Artful Intelligence tackles a problem specific to young creative talent: girls make incredible artwork, but often lack a clear, professional way to present it or find opportunities to share it.
Their solution is an AI-powered tool that converts artwork into polished digital portfolios, then matches artists with scholarships, competitions, and showcase opportunities based on age, location, interests, and style. The platform also gives step-by-step guidance, helping young artists write descriptions of their own work and track their growth over time.
As one team member put it during the presentation, the app is not just about building a portfolio. It is about helping young creators imagine a bigger future for themselves.
What the Mentors Saw
For the women who volunteered, facilitated workshops, guest talks, and full-team mentoring across the four weeks, the experience cut both ways. Mentors did not just teach. They watched a group of girls build something real in a matter of weeks, often faster and more creatively than the mentors expected.
“Being paired with such intelligent young ladies made it so rewarding. I’m looking forward to continuing to pour into the next generation,” said Kavon, one of the AI Leadership Lab’s volunteer mentors.
Another mentor, Ashley, said the experience pushed her outside her own comfort zone as much as it did the girls’. “I’ve never been a mentor before but I felt so supported by the Programs Team. I’m so grateful I decided to try something new!”
The Other Projects
Three additional teams presented at the Showcase, each tackling a different real-world problem:
AIm with the ER and Primary Care, explored whether AI could help patients decide between a primary care visit and an emergency room visit based on their symptoms, using their own family healthcare experiences as case studies.
STEM Spark Paths, built by an AI chatbot platform designed to give girls in under-resourced communities personalized STEM career guidance, learning resources, and mentor matches.
Medical Marvels, designed NICU Nurture, an AI-powered tool to help healthcare teams monitor oral health in NICU babies, an area they identified as often overlooked amid other vital monitoring.
Ice Fusion, built STEMLink AI, an app that connects young women interested in STEM with female professionals in the field. The tool matches users with mentors based on their interests and strengths, then helps them find hands-on opportunities. It also includes a built-in opportunity finder to help girls locate scholarships and internships in their area.
The Bigger Picture
Every team built something different, but the through line was the same. None of these girls set out to build a class project. They identified a real gap, in healthcare, in education, in mentorship, in the arts, and used AI to build toward an actual solution. That is Play Like a Girl’s theory of change in practice: confidence built through real experience, not a pep talk.
How to Get Involved
Eighteen girls finished this program more confident, more connected, and more ready to see themselves in a STEM career, because AI professionals and mentors showed up for four weeks. If you want to help make that same shift happen for more girls next time:
Learn about volunteering with Play Like a Girl!
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