INDIGITOUS US 8/30/23: Summer cohorts wrap up
Praise God for our wrapping up our cohorts this summer! Our 15 interns worked hard across three cohorts to work on the following projects:
Bible Innovation – Basil Tech
“Sprout” – a mobile Bible app prototype that encourages habit formation among users. It also includes new note-taking methods and social and community building.
Faith, University of Minnesota: During this project, the biggest thing God taught me was to be humble, patient, and to have an open mind. As we were all students with different backgrounds in this cohort, it was very important to trust others with the skills that God had blessed them with. The biggest challenge for me was feeling confident in the gifts God had given me. It also made me feel like I had to grow as a designer very fast as well. Matthew , our mentor throughout the internship, had shared many insightful things during the meetings which had somewhat eased my mind. Overall, my main thought to encourage myself for this project was “to serve and further his kingdom.” Throughout this internship, my mindset on missions has changed drastically. Missions are usually painted as a job that you give everything up for. Something that you have to move countries for. To be able to still have the gospel sent out through the form of technology is life changing; maybe not by picking up your things and moving but it is an experience that humble’s you and still has you trusting in what God has planned.
Reaching Online UPGs Report – National Pioneer Initiative
A research report surveying gamers and the digital landscape as a new avenue to reach the unreached online. This research studied user demographics and characteristics among platforms like streams, MMORPGs, VR, Web3, DarkWeb, and social media.
Jada, University of Tennessee-Knoxville: This served as an eye-opener to the project that I helped in. God calls us to go to every nation and spread the good news of Christ, yet there are millions online hungry for the gospel but are left unheard. But, how do you even go about talking to online groups if their mind is set on “finishing the game”? In other words, how do you make them sit and listen? The simple answer to that question is to do what the disciples did in Luke 10: Listen to them, respect those who are not ready to listen to the gospel, and invite those who are ready. Only by doing so can you identify their needs and the best way to get them connected with the church. This is only one example of the many topics I explored in my summer research but has significantly changed my viewpoint of online groups. They are people who yearn for the gifts of God: love, community, and a sense of belonging. The best way to evangelize to them is to listen to them and get them connected. For me, this meant using my intercultural skills to foster relationships with diverse groups of people and inviting them to events.
AI for Bible Translation – SIL
AI scripts like ChatGPT can help generate Question-Answer Pairs to assess the quality of Bible translations. Combining with SIL’s AI code provides valuable data and quality assurance for the accuracy of Bible translations.
Caleb, University of Texas at Dallas: I learned so much about working with AI and Large Language Models, but my biggest takeaway will be the motivation behind SIL’s mission. SIL emphasizes the importance of maintaining unique cultures and languages instead of combining them into more common and generalized groups. This was a new insight to me, as I had never before considered that part of glorifying God and preserving his creation is also maintaining the unique cultures of humanity. It was an eye opening revelation that will stick with me even after the summer cohort program. Moving forward I will take these new experiences and lessons to heart.