Transnational consortium meeting in Barcelona, 18–19 June 2026.
On 18 and 19 June 2026, Youth AI Lab’s five partners met in Barcelona to compare what they had learned during the first months of experimentation. Beyond reviewing progress, the meeting provided an opportunity to understand how the workshops had changed the way the project was being designed and to plan the next steps.
The workshops already held in La Rochelle, Naples and Barcelona confirmed the need for a shared framework flexible enough to suit very different contexts. Activities focusing on generative AI, robotics and app development cannot be delivered in the same way in a community centre, a technical high school or an intensive programme. Initial feedback has therefore led the teams to revise certain formats. In Italy, for example, sessions were shortened to better match the students’ pace.
Preparing mentors is a second key challenge. Mentors generally feel comfortable engaging with young people, but several team members say they lack clear reference points for explaining technical concepts and discussing bias, ethics and representation. Participants may also find these issues abstract—or even lose interest—when they feel powerless to influence AI systems. The partners therefore want to prioritise more practical approaches based on experimentation and comparisons between human and algorithmic bias. Mentors have also asked for easy-to-use resources: accessible explanations of how AI works, examples linked to the Sustainable Development Goals, and practical guidance they can apply directly in workshops.
Beyond local adjustments, the project must now turn the experiences gained in each country into resources that benefit the entire consortium. The skills tree will provide a shared framework for tracking young people’s learning and comparing approaches without making them uniform. Future field stories will document the situations encountered, the challenges faced and the solutions tested, allowing every partner to draw on the others’ experience. This joint work will guide preparations for the second wave of workshops.