Taylor Shead's home office is up high in the clouds over the streets of downtown Dallas; a fitting place for someone who runs a tech startup company that just won an international award.
"It feels like the entrepreneur's Olympics," Shead said smiling ear-to-ear.
Shead is the Founder and CEO of Stemuli, an interactive educational video game platform that tailors learning to each student's interests. The idea was born from Shead's observation that educational video games needed an update.
"There's platforms that our kids are learning on, millions of kids are learning on, and they look older than MySpace," Shead said. "Stemuli is a platform that transforms learning into a video game."
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Shead's Stemuli tech startup was selected to represent North America at the United Nations AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva, Switzerland last week, where she competed for the Innovation Factory Award
"So they decided that Stemuli was the best use case of AI for Good this year," Shead said. "In 2024 what I want to show is it's time to take women and minorities seriously, and this award couldn't be a better embodiment of what that looks like."
Shead became the first Black female to win the UN AI for Good Summit's Innovation Factory Award. Her competition was all men. She hopes her win will inspire other women and People of Color in the tech space.
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"Cause we're on a pathway to change the world," Shead said.
Shead says Stemuli is used locally in Dallas, Garland, and Fort Worth ISDs, as well as Stride, the largest online education school. Stemuli has support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
