Break Through Tech AI Program fellows are undergraduate students preparing for careers in data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, software, analytics, and related technical fields. 

Fellows come from colleges and universities across the country and often represent student populations that have been historically overlooked by traditional tech recruiting pipelines. Break Through Tech’s broader mission is to fix the broken supply chain between overlooked college students and the hiring engines of industry, especially in tech. 

Students enter the AI Program to build the technical skills, professional confidence, portfolio experience, and industry networks needed to pursue competitive internships and early-career roles. They are not simply completing a classroom assignment. They are preparing to demonstrate real project experience to future employers. 

The program includes technical training, applied industry project work, specialization, professional skills development, mentorship, and coaching. Break Through Tech provides significant scaffolding around the student experience to ensure fellows are prepared before the project, supported during the engagement, and able to communicate their work professionally. 

Fellows are motivated, career-oriented, and eager to work on meaningful AI and data science challenges. They bring emerging technical skills, curiosity, persistence, collaboration, and a strong desire to build portfolio-ready work that can help them access future internships and full-time roles.

Through the AI & Machine Learning Consulting Studio, fellows will: 

• Apply machine learning and data science concepts to real-world industry challenges
 • Translate organizational questions into structured analytical and machine learning problem statements
 • Work with real, synthetic, public, or sample datasets to conduct exploration, preparation, modeling, and evaluation
 • Build portfolio-ready technical work that demonstrates applied AI, ML, or data science capabilities
 • Practice responsible AI thinking, including awareness of bias, limitations, ethical considerations, and model tradeoffs
 • Strengthen technical communication through written documentation, presentations, and project storytelling
 • Collaborate effectively in teams while receiving feedback from coaches, mentors, and industry advisors
 • Gain confidence engaging with industry professionals and navigating project-based technical work
 • Build stronger readiness for future internships, full-time roles, and career pathways in the tech ecosystem

The AI & Machine Learning Consulting Studio is a multi-partner, project-based experiential learning program that connects Break Through Tech AI Program fellows with industry organizations seeking fresh perspectives on applied AI, machine learning, data science, and analytics challenges. 

This program is designed to engage many organizations across many real-world challenge projects. Each participating organization contributes a clearly defined AI, ML, data science, or analytics challenge that fellows can address in teams with support from Break Through Tech coaches, mentors, and industry challenge advisors. 

Break Through Tech’s AI Program is a highly scaffolded, virtual experience that prepares undergraduate students for fast-growing roles in data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and related technical fields. Fellows receive technical training, professional skills development, mentorship, coaching, and applied project experience. The industry project component gives fellows the opportunity to translate their learning into portfolio-ready work connected to real organizational needs. 

Projects may involve predictive modeling, classification, clustering, natural language processing, computer vision, exploratory data analysis, business intelligence, responsible AI, AI product exploration, model evaluation, workflow automation, or applied analytics. Participating organizations may provide real, synthetic, public, or sample datasets, or they may contribute a well-defined business or operational problem that can be translated into a data science or machine learning challenge. 

The goal is not to replace internal data science teams or produce production-ready software. The goal is to create a meaningful applied learning experience where fellows can practice technical problem-solving, responsible AI thinking, collaboration, stakeholder communication, and project storytelling while producing useful exploratory insights, prototypes, presentations, or recommendations for participating organizations. 

For industry partners, this program provides a low-barrier way to support inclusive AI talent development, mentor emerging technologists, and explore applied AI use cases. For fellows, the Consulting Studio creates “resume gold”: real company project experience that helps level the playing field in internship and full-time recruiting.

Partnering with Break Through Tech through the AI & Machine Learning Consulting Studio gives organizations a practical way to support the next generation of AI talent while engaging fellows on real data science and machine learning challenges. 

Industry partners benefit through: 

Applied AI Exploration
Fellow teams can investigate AI, ML, data science, or analytics questions connected to business, product, operational, research, or social impact priorities. 

Fresh Perspectives on Technical Challenges
Students bring current technical training, curiosity, and diverse perspectives to problems involving data, automation, modeling, prediction, classification, user behavior, business intelligence, or responsible AI. 

Portfolio-Ready Student Output
Partners receive student-developed outputs such as exploratory analyses, model prototypes, technical documentation, visualizations, presentations, dashboards, or recommendations. 

Inclusive AI Talent Pipeline Development
Organizations build relationships with emerging AI and data science talent while supporting Break Through Tech’s mission to launch a new generation of tech talent that reflects the full breadth of human potential. 

Mentorship and Employee Engagement
Industry professionals can serve as challenge advisors, mentors, or feedback providers, creating meaningful employee engagement opportunities tied to talent development and social impact. 

Employer Brand Visibility
Companies demonstrate leadership in expanding access to AI careers and helping students gain the experience, confidence, and professional network needed to enter the tech ecosystem. 

Low-Risk Innovation Support
Partners can explore early-stage AI or data science ideas without requiring production implementation, internal hiring, or long-term resource commitment.

Participating organizations should be prepared to: 

• Provide a clearly defined AI, ML, data science, or analytics challenge
 • Share a real-world dataset, synthetic dataset, public dataset, sample dataset, or clearly framed data problem appropriate for undergraduate fellows
 • Assign an industry challenge advisor or project contact to provide business context and feedback
 • Participate in a kickoff session to introduce the organization, challenge, goals, constraints, and desired outcomes
 • Clarify any data privacy, confidentiality, security, or ethical considerations before fellows begin work
 • Support periodic check-ins, office hours, or feedback sessions during the project cycle
 • Attend final presentations, demos, or portfolio showcases when possible
 • Scope projects so they are meaningful, educational, and achievable for undergraduate fellows building AI and ML experience 

Projects should emphasize applied learning, responsible AI practice, portfolio development, and authentic industry relevance. They should not require access to highly sensitive data, production systems, or mission-critical infrastructure.