05/20/2026
Big news for every New York family this month.
The SUNY Board of Trustees just made AI literacy a graduation requirement for all 64 campuses. Every incoming undergraduate starting Fall 2026 will complete an AI literacy component as part of general education. Chancellor John B. King Jr. signed off on it April 30. Inside Higher Ed broke the story on May 4.
Boston Public Schools is doing the same in K-12 starting September. Google launched free AI training for 6 million U.S. educators last week. U.S. bachelor's degrees in AI grew 114% in just one year.
The AI literacy floor is being set everywhere. That is good news.
Here is the part we want to add to the conversation.
Knowing what an AI agent is, and being able to ship one, are not the same skill. Literacy is the syllabus. Building is the portfolio.
GenHax is New York based. While SUNY makes literacy mandatory, our learners have already been at the next floor: building real things on NSF-funded knowledge graphs, cybersecurity infrastructure, climate models, and homelessness support tools.
A few that are open right now:
👉 Code Your First AI App or Agent — the on-ramp with mentor hand-holding
👉 US NSF — Proto-OKN knowledge graphs, 90% of past learning engineers improved on their next AI project
👉 SECURE CHAIN, DREAM-KG, Climate Forecast — NSF-grade research challenges
Two deadlines for educators and program managers this week:
📌 Thursday May 21 — aiEDU Community Catalyst Letters of Intent ($25K and $50K grants)
📌 Wednesday May 27 — NSF FINDERS FOUNDRY Planning proposals (up to $50K, requires K-12 students throughout development)
If you are building a proposal for either: we have run the student-in-the-loop co-creation model 25+ times. We can plug in.
Question for the community: SUNY is setting AI literacy as the floor. What is the next floor for your students?
🔗 Live challenges: app.genhax.com/challenges
🔗 SUNY story (Inside Higher Ed): https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/academic-life/2026/05/04/suny-sets-systemwide-ai-policy