Closing event of the AI Ambassador program showcases fresh ideas among AI skills
42 teenagers participating in the AI Ambassador program will present their projects in the closing event Tellus, University of Oulu, on Friday 13th of June. The open event gathers more than 60 attendants and showcased youth’s works during the two weeks program.
This year’s edition of the AI Ambassador program offered three parallel tracks: The future of AI decision-making systems, Solving real world problems using technology systems and Exploring use of ChatGPT in youth. Each of the tracks included diverse activities to introduce youth to AI techniques such as Machine Learning, Learning Language Models, and chatbots, encouraging them to try and use various AI tools to promote critical thinking and ethical reflection.
In addition to supporting youth developing technical skills, the AI Ambassador program seeks to empower them, giving visibility to their views regarding the use of AI technologies. For this, the program also included training in media skills, which have been arranged in collaboration with the Mannerheim League of Child Welfare and the ITEE faculty´s communication experts. Youth’s reflections on AI are disseminated through the AI Ambassadors social media channels, as well as Nuortennetti.
INTERACT researchers have run the 2025 AI Ambassador program as part of ongoing research projects (Critical ChangeLab, Critical DataLit, TakeOver, FutuProta, Besties). The program, which is partly funded by Business Oulu, started in the summer of 2023 in connection with the FCAI SIG on Children and AI, and the PAIZ project, as a collaboration between INTERACT and Information Studies unit, University of Oulu.
About the Critical ChangeLab project
Critical ChangeLab (Democracy Meets Arts: Critical Change Labs for Building Democratic Cultures through Creative and Narrative Practices) is a Horizon Europe research and innovation project addressing democratic erosion trends by strengthening youth participation in society. The Critical ChangeLab project uses mixed model research design combining quantitative and in-depth qualitative research on democracy and youth with participatory action research cycles to generate a robust evidence base to support democratic curriculum development using participatory, creative, and critical approaches. University of Oulu coordinates the Critical ChangeLab consortium, which is formed by leading European organizations in research and education combining arts and technology approaches.
PI: Marianne Kinnula, co-PI: Eva Durall
About Critical DataLit
Critical DataLit: Cultivating justice-oriented data literacies among GenZ
Critical DataLit is a four year project funded by the Finnish Research Council that explores youth’s data literacies, with an emphasis in supporting social justice in the context of digital citizenship education. The project uses creative practices (building on storytelling and critical making), as well as futures methods to understand how young people (ages between 11 and 17 years) perceive their futures in data-driven systems and to foster their capabilities of action in the futures they want to live in.
PI: Eva Durall
About TakeOver
Children's transformative agency, emergent technologies, and the common good
TAKEOVER aims at fostering children’s transformative agency with emerging technologies for social good. The world changes rapidly. With AI, VR, and social robots becoming more common, children will grow up in a digital world vastly different from today. Simultaneously, global challenges like climate change, inequality, and discrimination continue to affect their lives. TAKEOVER aims to prepare children for this future—not just as passive users of technology but as active creators and change-makers.
PI: Netta Iivari
About FutuProta
Making sense of technology protagonism
The project examines ‘technology protagonism’, i.e., how the future citizens, as private persons, employees, entrepreneurs, policymakers or technology developers – would be able to act as technology protagonists with ability to question digital technology use and demand for socially sustainable technological solutions that augment humans and societies, and even design such technologies themselves.
PI: Marianne Kinnula
Further information for each AI Ambassador track
Track A: The future of AI decision-making systems
In this project, you will explore the future of AI decision-making systems and assist in research related to critical data literacy and AI. You will engage in research activities, collect data and analyze it, participate in creative activities such as design and prototyping, and contribute to dissemination and public engagement.
Track B: Solving real world problems using technology systems
In this project, you will explore real world, every day, societal and/or environmental problems and envision future solutions for them. This includes exploring different types of emerging technologies, such as, Generative AI, Virtual Reality, and Robots, and ideating and designing future solutions using these technologies. You will also connect with researchers at the university and learn about cutting edge research on ethical AI and technology design.
Track C: Exploring use of ChatGPT in youth
In this project, you will research on the many different types of chatbots and LLMs geared towards those under 18 years of age, and explore their features and limitations, and use and adoption. Exploring also the ethical issues in the development of these systems.