From NASA to the classroom: Engineers bring AI to those left behind

Growing up in New Jersey, Ms. Jetter saved the money her grandfather gave her – not for candy, but for batteries and light bulbs, so she could make circuits out of whatever she found in the neighborhood.

His father took him to the library to look for materials; his mother, a kindergarten and special education teacher, taught him how to explain complex ideas simply.

Three decades later, this curious kid has helped build the GPS satellite system that much of the world now relies on, worked at NASA, Boeing, and Raytheon, and holds one of the highest technical positions at Amazon: senior principal technologist in AI robotics, a role reserved for only a handful of engineers worldwide.

Then, at the peak of his career, he found a new calling.

“I studied artificial intelligence before it became as cool as it is now,” he says.

Decisive moment

Ms. Jetter studied mathematics and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, specializing in planetary science, followed by a master’s degree in aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford and 20 years developing autonomous algorithms for spacecraft and robots.

By any measure, he was at the top of his field. But something was bothering him.

“This moment is very important for the world because of how AI is shaping our society and how humans are shaping AI,” he said. “If we don’t have a proper voice in shaping artificial intelligence…the products we produce will not be the best for us as a global community.”

That belief changed everything. Miss Jetter decided that her experience was best spent ensuring no one was left behind.

A right, not a privilege

That’s why his non-profit organization, ThinqueBytes, was born – first as a personal project developed over five years, then as part of the Distinguished Minds Institute.

Its mission is to expand access to artificial intelligence and STEM education among communities historically underserved by the technology sector. It has trained more than 1,000 young people on four continents.

The approach is simple: break down complex subjects – AI, robotics, rocket science – into short videos, or “bytes,” each of which answers a basic question. What is artificial intelligence? Should I be afraid of it? Will this take my job? For Ms. Jetter, understanding emerging technologies “should not be a privilege; it should be a right.”

There is a personal dimension to that belief. Ms. Jetter attended an engineering school where, she said, “there were definitely more boys than girls,” and has experienced bias from people who reject a different reality — “and sometimes that different reality is just brilliant people who deserve a place in this world.”

From AI security to global governance

Ms. Jetter is not a technology optimist. He likens AI to a hammer: “In the right hands, AI can build homes, protect people, and save lives. In the hands of very different people, AI can be used to cause harm.”

That’s why he believes regulations are important – not as a barrier, but as a compass to help people understand when and how a product can cause harm.

he describes a world moving so fast that “rules are sometimes made while we are building,” often by people who lack the basic knowledge to build responsibly.

Consensus in Geneva

In early July, these beliefs collided with the global agenda. Ms Jetter and her team joined the first UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance in Geneva, the first AI forum established by the UN General Assembly attended by all countries.

Opening the summit, Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that AI, if used well and widely used, could “shorten decades of development into a few years” and be “the greatest equalizer of the 21st century” – but warned that the choice is “govern by design or deviate by default.” He noted that 2.2 billion people, one in four people worldwide, are still disconnected from the digital world.

That Secretary General Doreen Bogdan-Martin delivered the same message: for AI to benefit everyone, technology and international cooperation must advance together.

A few days later, in AI for Good Global Summitwhere Ms. Jetter also spoke, the conversation turned real — AI for early cancer detection, internet access for remote schools, and critical thinking skills for a generation growing up talking to machines.

Ms Jetter could return to her old career at any time. Instead, somewhere in a classroom in Ghana, or on a screen anywhere in the world, someone who never imagined understanding an algorithm is studying it — because an engineer decided that the future of AI should be written in classrooms, not just in corporate labs.