Wedge is Impact Oriented and Local!
Our mission at Wedge is to provide underrepresented communities with programmatic education to use emerging technology for storytelling and creative career opportunities with a focus on AI, blockchain, 3D, and next generation technology.
We fulfill our mission by focusing on our local communities, from Southwest Atlanta neighborhoods like Adair Park and Pittsburgh, to the heart of Midtown, north to Druid Hills and Buford Highway, east to Reynoldstown, and all cross the state of Georgia. Read more below about impact in the community and our focus on emerging technology, storytelling, and creative career opportunities.
Technology Accessibility and Access
Emerging technologies like AI and machine learning were created to benefit humankind. Unfortunately, people who could gain the most from the productivity and innovation related to AI are not always granted access to this technology.
Wedge partners with organizations like Citizen Advocacy of Atlanta and Dekalb to create workshops and programs that center on education around AI tools and workflows, storytelling, and discovering next generation accessibility tools.
Through our partner Eric Naindouba, founder of the American and African Advocacy Gathering, we consistently communicate with Georgia Council on Developmental Disability, Georgia Advocacy, Youth Decide Georgia, Dekalb Board of Education, the City of Atlanta, and many other disability and accessibility focused groups to align our programming with the needs and use cases around ADA, Idea Act, and universal accessibility.
We Listen to the Community
Our impact is not limited to community organizations and individuals. We work directly with schools in Fulton County, Dekalb, and beyond to facilitate AI learning opportunities and request direct feedback. Programs include AI Art workshops, Artists in Residence programming, Prompt Engineering workshops, Professional Development for Educators, and hands-on demonstrations of emerging technology like generative AI and virtual reality.
Some of the Educational Institutions we've worked with to date include:
What is Data Justice?
Data justice is the concept of treating the use of an individual’s personal data ethically, being fair, and with consideration of their unique perspective in society. It is about ensuring that individuals have control over their data and that it is used in a way that benefits them. Data justice also includes addressing the power imbalances that can arise when data is collected and used. For example, it is important to ensure that individuals from marginalized groups are not disproportionately affected by the use of data.
Learning AI can be hard! (for adults)
Learning about machine learning algorithm advances of the past 50 years takes time and basic knowledge of technology terms. It can be hard to keep up with emerging use cases for emerging technology. Especially for adults who dislike change and do not trust new technology. We get it! And we hear your frustrations.
Wedge creates programming that meetings our community where they live. Our programming activations are mobile, mostly in person, happen all over Georgia, and are leveled to the audience.
Examples of some of our leveled programming:
- K-5 young learners, learning the grammatical structure of a sentence prompt to make their very first AI Artwork
- 6th to 8th grade students, engaging in worldbuilding and character creation exercises to write fictional stories and develop original ideas
- High School students, learning advanced prompt engineering, inpainting, and document design to produce fully developed fictional and non-fictional worlds inhabited by their own creations
- College and adult learners, using generative text tools like ChatGPT and professional design tools like Canva Magic Studio to build a business, design social justice based creative activism content, and even learning AI Animation with tools like Runway ML and Adobe Firefly Video.
- Educational AMA sessions, expert testimony, consulting and collaborating with local government officials, NGOs, and the Researchers in academia at major universities
What is Data Bias?
Data bias is an error that happens when humans misrepresent the weight or representation in data sets that results in inaccurate outputs. This can lead to systemic prejudice and long term bias when the data set is queried. Data bias is common when algorithms contain faulty assumptions. Data Bias is a problem in the world of technology because it causes large scale problems over time when it is not identified and addressed on a small scale. For example, an inaccurate sample of housing insecurity on a single street in Adair Park, an Atlanta community, might lead to vital funding being allocated to other projects because the data does not show the need in that area. But if that same data is used year after year, it can lead to massive deficits in funding and necesitate more costly investments when the problems grow due to neglect.
Wedge: The Mission
Wedge is on a mission to provide under represented communities with education around and access to emerging technologies like AI. We focus on creative community storytelling, letting the students, Moms, families, faculty, and friends tell us how AI is impacting their daily life, and providing resources to improve career and data justice outcomes.
Plainly, we reach the community by being IN the community. We were founded in Atlanta, with ties to Southwest Atlanta neighborhoods like Adair Park, Pittsburgh, Peoplestown, and all through the metro. We've worked with Atlanta Public Schools K-12 such as Carver STEAM, Maynard Jackson, M. Agnes Jones Academy, The Museum School, Drew Charter, West Elm Elementary, St Thomas More School, and others. We work with Fulton County Arts and Culture, the local and state government in Georgia, as well as higher ed academic institutions like Georgia Tech, Emory, Georgia State, Clark Atlanta, and others. We're local.
Sneaker XXIII NFT
Sneaker XXIII NFT Project @ M. Agnes Jones
Sneaker XXIII is a digital collection brought to you but a unique group of young scholars from the Westside of Atlanta. Led by their Art Teacher Mr. C. Jenkins, the after-school art club known as the “Beta Testers” at M. Agnes Jones Elementary School explores emerging technology from a creative standpoint to help understand what roles tech can play in art and our community.
As Georgia’s first Department of Education’s first STEAM certified school, we seized the opportunity learn, create, and educate from the perspective of a young scholar for fellow young scholars.
Now you can be part of a real-world classroom education project helping students discover their creativity as currency as well as reinforce an engaging multitude of academic curriculums that intersect these cutting technologies.
Technical facilitation, professional development, and NFT education for this project by Jeremiah Long, Executive Director of Wedge Inc, an Atlanta based 501(c)(3) nonprofit specializing in educating underrepresented youth on emerging technologies and creativity in fields such as coding, Web3 and Artificial intelligence.
This project was created over the course of the Spring 2023 school semester, in coordination and led by Art Teacher Mr. Colm Jenkins, with support from School Partnership & Communication Liaison Zeta Moore, and Principal Robert Williams.
Design Justice: Queering the Map
Jeremiah Long, Executive Director of Wedge hosts a conversation with Lucas LaRochelle, creator and The New York Times featured founder of Queering the Map, a crowdsourced digital atlas that invites LGBTQ2IA+ people to tag any point on earth with an anonymous message describing what the location means to them.
Hear from Lucas in a virtual talk about the creation of Queering the Map and their work on QT.bot, an Artificial Intelligence platform trained on textual and visual data from Queering the Map.
"I LOVE the art, technology, and idea behind this work!! This is the heart and soul of data justice and the fight to reduce data bias in AI innovation." - Jeremiah Long
This is part of Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA)'s Design Justice series, and I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this event.
Watch more in: Queering the Map at Museum of Design Atlanta
End to End NFT Project Creation w/ JL
What do you need to launch your own NFT project? Whether you're an artist wanting to digitally authenticate your artworks, or you run a membership program and want to secure access for your members through utility, building a smart contract and using non-fungible tokens on a blockchain is an excellent way to create a decentralized and immutable experience. But what are smart contracts and how does one actually create an NFT? Learn the process from idea to launch with Jeremiah Long, Executive Director of Wedge in this live online training.
Watch now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfK6leD8zoc
Brought to you by Umba Diama, hosted by Enok, and produced by Iris Nevins.
Wedge joins "Immutable Founders" Cohort
The Atlanta Blockchain Center announced Wedge, RevereXR, and Helix Automotive as their inaugural Immutable Founders cohort. An accelerator designed to help emerging technology companies grow with a focus on Web3 technology like blockchain, non-fungible tokens, and digital identity.
Read more: Teknovation ATL
Read more in: Biz Journals Atlanta
Wedge also partnered with ABC in 2022 to help build Atlanta based Web3 weekly programming at the Atlanta Blockchain Center's physical location in Buckhead.
Read more in: Blockchain Wire