Round Rock student wins national award from artificial intelligence group

Walsh Middle School seventh grader Aariv Modi has always had a fascination for technology, especially his parent's Alexa device. "I loved the idea of just speaking to a device that it could allow you to play music, listen to the news, and it seemed futuristic to me," Aariv said. In April, Aariv was recognized as the Voice/AI Pioneer of the Year by Project Voice for his contributions to the conversational artificial intelligence industry. During the COVID-19 lockdown, he taught hundreds of kids how to make Alexa do things it isn't programmed to do through webinars, camps and posts on his blog that is available online. "In this generation, as kids are growing up, they are being exposed to technology and learning things in ways that we never thought was possible," said Bradley Metrock, CEO of Score Publishing, which organizes the Project Voice conference.