AI in Education: Are We Listening to School Students? A Student-Led Experiment to Challenge Our Assumptions.
Educators, schools, policymakers and technology providers are investing enormous effort in understanding AI in education. How should we use it? What are the risks? Are our policies appropriate? What will the relationship between AI and education look like in two years? And how do we ensure AI aligns with our educational values?
But what do the students think?
How are teenagers actually using AI? What excites them? What concerns them? What do they think AI should, and shouldn’t, be doing in their education? And perhaps most importantly, how would we know?
Rather than relying on surveys, workshops or adult-led discussions, we’re taking a different approach.
We’re organising a student-led hackathon built around one big question: Should we use AI in schools?
Students will explore this big question through a series of specific, narrowly defined challenges across several themes. Working in teams, using a modified hackathon process and supported by teachers and mentors, students will explore their own perspectives, examine the underlying problems, develop ideas, consider constraints, and ultimately propose solutions and recommendations.
The objective isn’t to build AI applications or teach students how to use AI. It’s to create an engaging environment where teenagers take ownership of the conversation about AI, challenge assumptions and reveal perspectives that adults may not have considered.
This interactive session will introduce the concept and invite participants to challenge and contribute to the approach ahead of a planned international series of student hackathons across Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe and East Africa.
The hackathons will be facilitated by Dr Dean Alle, an entrepreneur and angel investor, with LEXIE, a holographic AI assistant already used in European schools, participating as an AI co-facilitator.
This adds another dimension to the experiment: giving AI a voice in the conversation about its own role in education.
We’re not organising hackathons to find out how well teenagers understand AI.
We’re are doing hackathons to find out how well we understand teenagers.
Facilitated By
Dr Dean T Alle
Co Founder / Director, Dynatex
Dr. Dean Alle is an angel investor, startup strategist, and technology executive with a passion for scaling deep-tech and software ventures. He serves as the Co-Founder, Lead Investor, and Managing Director of Dynatex Digital, where he drives investment strategy and growth for a diverse portfolio of cutting-edge technology platforms, including Schoolsuite and LEXIE.
With a background rooted in high-level scientific research, Dr. Alle holds a PhD in Atomic and Molecular Physics from the Australian National University. Transitioning from the laboratory to the commercial tech ecosystem, he has spent years acting as an entrepreneur-in-residence and strategic advisor. He is widely recognized for his ability to bridge the gap between complex science and commercial viability, helping early-stage companies structure capital raises, optimize operations, and successfully navigate growth.
