In this episode of Kinwise: AI Insights for Education Leaders, host Lydia Kumar sits down with three members of the Byrd Brains to learn about how they build the Jade Book. 

-The most powerful solutions come from lived experience. Chris Butler experienced homelessness three times, including during COVID while sleeping in a car. That personal stake shaped how the Byrd Brains built the Jade Book.

-AI hallucination is a real problem students can learn to solve. The team discovered their app was generating fake shelter listings and developed a systematic back-testing process to verify every resource before publishing. 

-Collaboration across schools is possible. Chris attends a different school than his teammates and joined the team remotely through SparkNC. The team met in person for the first time only after making the top ten. Remote collaboration is a real-world skill students need to practice.

-Students need more AI instructors, not just AI policies. Tremaine made the point directly: his school has one AI instructor, and that makes all the difference. Teachers who encourage AI use rather than ban it create entirely different learning environments.

-When students are given real problems, they build real things. The Jade Book has already attracted interest from companies and organizations wanting to make it a real product.