Transnational kick-off meeting in La Rochelle, 28–29 January 2026.
On 28 and 29 January 2026, the five Youth AI Lab project partners met in La Rochelle for their first transnational meeting. Hosted by the Vent des Îles Social and Cultural Centre, these two days marked the official launch of our European journey.
Representatives from L.A.B (France), the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain), Perlatecnica (Italy), Digitale Wolven (Belgium) and the Vent des Îles Social and Cultural Centre (France) came together around a shared ambition: to open up the black box of generative AI so that young people across Europe can take ownership of it and question its uses and underlying assumptions.
Combining strategic planning with creative brainstorming, each partner presented how they planned to organise workshops locally. This diversity of approaches is precisely what makes the project so valuable. After-school clubs in Naples, intensive classroom sessions in Barcelona, extracurricular workshops in Belgium, and monthly sessions and intensive weeks in France: each partner is creating a pathway tailored to its young participants. The labs are designed for young people aged 12 to 18, supported by mentors aged 18 to 25—including doctoral candidates, engineering students and young digital professionals. The programme will help them understand how generative AI works, build their own language models and use them in projects addressing civic and societal issues.
The Autonomous University of Barcelona laid the foundations for the assessment strategy: pre- and post-workshop questionnaires for both participants and mentors, covering AI literacy, transferable skills, motivation and satisfaction. The consortium also adopted the Maker Skill Tree methodology to track young people’s progress from discovery to creation. Progress reviews are scheduled for June and December 2026, summer 2027 and February 2028, alongside follow-up on participants’ pathways and video interviews documenting achievements.
In the months that followed, France launched the first activities with young people, followed by Italy, Spain and Belgium. The ideas sketched out in La Rochelle—from creating chatbots to exploring AI ethics—thus began to take shape in the different local labs.
Outside the working sessions, the partners explored La Rochelle through a Tèrra Aventura trail: a life-size treasure hunt combining puzzles and local heritage. It was a great way to build team spirit while exploring the old streets and harbour of La Rochelle.
A group Tèrra Aventura trail through La Rochelle.