Participatory AI for Youth, Luleå

Imagine · Luleå University of Technology · 2023–2024

The capacity-builder model at its cleanest: facilitator bootcamps and a platform licence within the Interreg UrbanTestbeds.JR programme let Luleå University of Technology run participatory-AI youth workshops itself. In October 2024 the LTU team — without external facilitators in the room — ran a workshop with 35 children aged 12–13 at Hertsöskolan, redesigning the pedestrian tunnels, crossings, greenways and bike paths of their own school route.

Who took part

Consortium facilitators from universities, municipalities, libraries and science centres at the bootcamps; 35 schoolchildren in 7 groups rotating between VR and AI rooms at Hertsöskolan.

What the tool did

Bootcamps covered ideation planning, verbal and visual prompting, voting, storytelling and documentation; children then combined analogue methods, VR context exploration and AI design and visualisation.

What changed

The method was documented as use case #14 in the 199-page UrbanTestbeds.JR Playbook (December 2024), and the university licensed the platform for its architecture and city-planning department, continuing co-creational exercises with Luleå Municipality and local schools after the project ended.

Delivered together with project partners.