#44 London Interdisciplinary School, UK - AI Barbie (2023)

July 2023 may have been all about Barbie, but by August, #HigherEducation had its own blockbuster moment.

Enter LIS: The London Interdisciplinary School with a brilliantly executed, viral piece of student-led content - a deep dive into bias in AI image generation that resonated across platforms. Inspired by undergraduate Ana Howard’s research project ‘Beyond the Hype: Understanding Bias in AI’, LIS turned her work into engaging, thought-provoking video content just as MidJourney, Stable Diffusion, and DALL-E were taking off.

The results? A stunning 111,000 likes on Instagram, a widely shared YouTube Short, and a popular LinkedIn post that sparked real conversation among prospective students, educators, and industry leaders. But LIS didn’t stop there - they delivered the video directly to their registered community via HTML5 email, ensuring parents, teachers, and prospective students had it land straight in their inbox.

More than just a campaign, this was a masterclass in authentic storytelling - leveraging student work, riding a cultural wave, and using multi-channel distribution to make sure the right people saw it.

Check out the LinkedIn debate here, longer form film version here or the 8 minute read here.

And this wasn’t a one-off. LIS continues to create content designed to stimulate and engage future students, exploring urgent and complex topics that define modern life. Their video on why Gen Z is the loneliest generation dives into the root causes behind this global phenomenon - from social media addiction to modern work culture - offering a glimpse into the kind of critical, interdisciplinary thinking students can expect at LIS.

As AI accelerates at an unprecedented pace, the conversations sparked by this content are more relevant than ever. But so is the approach. If universities are serious about purpose, as so many claim, there is so much to learn from how LIS taps into what truly matters to its audiences - not just telling, but engaging, challenging, and inviting them into the conversation.

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