I cannot thank Level enough for these guides and the knowledge that they contain. All of you all there at Level have given me the opportunity to show the initiative that I am putting into my rehabilitative efforts with each one of these certificates. So, from the four corners of my heart... I say thank you.
AI mentoring for people in prison
Expand Level's innovative prison education program to enable AI mentoring for incarcerated learners who have no access to computers or the internet.
The opportunity
Innovative uses of AI to unlock potential and change lives
Budget: $25,850
Raised: $1,000
Budget
$25,850 Raised
$1,000
$25,850 Raised
$1,000
You may not know this, but people in prison do not have access to computers or the internet. Our innovative prison education program is able to reach nearly any person at any prison in any state with paper-based education and job training modules. Learners send us their completion forms writen by hand, through the mail. Receiving thousands of these a year makes it difficult to give customized feedback and mentorship for learners.
AI can help in two ways. First, we can use AI to automatically transcribe all handwritten completion forms, turning handwriting into machine readable text. Our staff and volunteers currently do this work, but it is time consuming. AI automation will enable faster, improved data collection and allow our staff and volunteers to provide more value to our community of learners in place of transcription by hand. Second, we can use AI to respond to questions from learners with a custom agent that knows our content, voice, pedagogical style and each learner’s previous engagement with our program. AI will enable us to increase the volume and improve the quality of connections with our learners.
The $25,850 project budget includes three phases. The first phase ($8,750) will expand our technology stack to use AI to automatically transcribe the thousands of handwritten completion forms that we receive every year. The second phase ($6,600) will upgrade this AI transcription system for surveying so we can better understand the needs of our learners. The third phase ($10,500) will build a custom AI agent to respond to handwritten questions from incarcerated learners, delivered to them with their certificate in their next shipment of educational material.
Contributors to this project
We thank our communities of support
We are thankful to Nightlight Insurance Agency in Austin, Texas for being the first in backer of this project!
Have questions about funding this project?
We've included answers to some general questions below. Please get in touch with any additional questions. Thank you!
Level is a popular, independent, nonprofit prison education program that offers education, career training and personal development for people in prison and connects with family members and supporters on the outside. Our unique approach can reach nearly any person at any prison, even those in high security or solitary confinement. 6,488 people in prison have spent 88,420 hours using the Level program inside 1,040 prisons across the country.
Level sends printed educational modules - we call them guides - to people in prison across the country. Our guides are designed to pass the stringent restrictions applied to incoming mail at correctional facilities. People in prison can use our guides in their cells or in common areas. Each of our guides is designed to be a 10 hour study program about one topic. People complete our program at their own pace.
When a learner finishes a guide, they transfer their quiz answers onto a Completion Form and send it back to us. Our system registers their completion of that guide, creates a Certificate of Achievement, and then we send a new guide.
We send updates by text or email to family members and supporters on the outside each time a new guide is sent and each time a certificate is earned. These updates help create connections and break isolation.
Yes, absolutely! We don't put all that on this page because it's a lot! We are happy to send you detailed project, timeline, budget, measurement and impact information. Please reach out using this contact form and let us know what you'd like to see.
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