Grade 11 entrepreneur tackles AI threats and opportunities with new startup LetterLabsAI – Ottawa Business Journal

Big companies aren’t the only ones jumping on the AI ​​bandwagon. Local high school student Dean Parsons is launching his own AI business and says we can expect many of his generation to do the same.

Parsons, an 11th-grader at Colonel By Secondary School, has long had a passion for technology and software. He began coding his own video games in high school using the free Scratch programming language, then moved on to the Unity game engine and learned C#.

“C# is pretty close to the languages ​​I use now, so it transferred really well,” he told OBJ in an interview Monday. “That’s where I learned about software, from those communities. I learned that video games were for entertainment, but I realized that the software I was building could be for entertainment or to help people, and that seemed like a much more fulfilling thing.”

Recently, Parsons and his colleagues have realized that artificial intelligence is opening up a new and potentially valuable area of ​​research.

“I’ve made a lot of friends in the (software) space, and a lot of them are always saying, listen, if you want to get into SaaS (software as a service), you really need to get into AI,” he said. “It’s a huge deal. The wave is here now, and you might as well get in on it now. I started learning from there.”

An intense job search last summer led him to the idea of ​​starting his first artificial intelligence company, LetterLabsAI, which he launched with support from Invest Ottawa’s Summer Company Program, which provides mentoring and scholarships for entrepreneurs in their teens and 20s.

“I realized that the cover letter was the hardest part for me personally,” he said of applying for jobs. “The cover letter has a certain personality to it. So I thought maybe AI could help.”

The platform lets job seekers upload a PDF of their cover letter, which is then analyzed by AI for structure, grammar, and other strengths and weaknesses. The app then returns a few feedback points for each category, so users can learn more about potential issues and how to fix them. Users can then make changes themselves or ask the AI ​​to do it for them.

Parsons said the result is a higher-quality cover letter that grabs recruiters’ attention while still maintaining the user’s style.

It’s a unique approach compared to AI-powered programs already available to job seekers, such as cover letter generators, and Parsons believes it better leverages ChatGPT’s strengths.

“AI is really good at understanding and explaining, but really bad at creating,” he said. “When you ask it to write something, it’s very mechanical and emotionless because it’s a robot. That’s when I realized that maybe writing a cover letter wasn’t what I needed it to do. I needed someone to review a cover letter, like an audit.”

The concept gained the support of an artist mentor from Invest Ottawa, who encouraged him to implement it and helped turn it into a business.

An early version of the program is already online, but Parsons said he is in the process of creating a new version with an updated user interface, new features and some premium features that users can pay to unlock. Parsons will also receive a grant to support the project, which he said will go towards the costs of running the program, as well as targeted advertising and other marketing efforts.

The next generation is focused on artificial intelligence

According to Parsons, AI and ChatGPT have really opened up the field for teens interested in technology.

“Everybody keeps talking about their next AI idea because it’s very, very easy,” he said. “So many large companies are leaning into adding AI and it’s just taking over the software space. A lot of features that used to take a lot of time to code. Now you can just tell the AI ​​what to do and it’ll take care of it on the back end.”

While the importance of AI as a tool for the next tech generation is undeniable, Parsons said some people his age who would like to pursue a career in tech still have concerns.

“It really falls into two groups,” he said. “There are people who enjoy it and people who are afraid of it.”

On the one hand, AI lowers the barriers to entry by simplifying the process and making it easier to build software. This means more young people are seeing the possibilities of creating their own unique AI businesses and becoming successful startup founders.

However, Parsons believes accessibility can be a double-edged sword.

“People are worried that things are going to become very, very saturated. With AI, you can build an app in three, four hours because ChatGPT is pretty good at coding,” he said.

“I’m in the group that’s a little bit afraid of AI because it’s so easy to build anything in technology. People are a little bit afraid that they’re going to start losing their jobs because any application that you build, someone else can always build it better – someone with less experience, less knowledge, can always build it better with these AI tools.”

Still, Parsons sees himself exploring new ways to use AI in the future. He said he plans to study software or computer science in college before going the startup route.

“I’m very interested in machine learning and how it can be used to help,” he said.

One option is to continue education by providing AI-based tools to students, but Parsons added that he would also like to create programs that help solve problems in health care.

“My dad’s a doctor, so I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the problems that the hospital is facing,” he said. “I want to take a problem that really exists and create a tool that will actually help. Because obviously, even though I want to make a living doing this, I want to create a tool that will help people.”