Date: Friday, 5 September 2025
Time: 09:30 – 13:00 (Paris time)
Format: Hybrid (Room VIII, UNESCO HQ, Paris and online)
Language: English
Registration: Click here to register and join online
As part of UNESCO Digital Learning Week 2025, the UNESCO Section of Health and Education and the UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies in Education (IITE) invite participants to join an Open Ideas Lab exploring how artificial intelligence can be integrated responsibly into education for health and well-being.
Background
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into education systems is accelerating, creating new opportunities to support teaching and learning across a wide range of subjects. While AI has been primarily applied in cognitive domains such as science, its use is now beginning to emerge in human-centred areas, including education for health and well-being, socio-emotional learning, and relationship.
The application of AI in these domains raises a distinct set of pedagogical, ethical, and regulatory challenges. Key concerns include the appropriateness of using AI to facilitate engagement with sensitive topics; the need to ensure that AI tools uphold principles of inclusivity, safety, and learner well-being; and the importance of clearly distinguishing between educational and medical functions, particularly in relation to content addressing health. In the absence of clear guidance and safeguards, there is a risk the use of AI in these areas may reinforce existing inequalities, perpetuate bias or exclusion, or contribute to the over-regulation of legitimate educational content.
As AI tools increasingly shape digital learning environments, their design and implementation must align with human rights principles and support inclusive, learner-centred education. This requires shared understanding, practical guidance, and ethical frameworks on governance, accountability, data protection, and content integrity. It also calls for cross-sector dialogue among educators, learners, technology developers, researchers, and policymakers.
UNESCO’s Digital Learning Week (DLW) provides a timely platform to advance this dialogue. Participants of the Open Ideas Lab on AI in health and well-being will co-develop preliminary guiding principles for the responsible use of AI in education that addresses interpersonal relationships, emotional development, and learner well-being.
About the event
This participatory Ideas Lab will feature expert presentations, live tool demonstrations, and interactive group dialogues to critically explore how AI is reshaping education for health and well-being. Participants will contribute to shaping a preliminary set of guiding principles to ensure AI-driven tools promote inclusive, ethical, and developmentally appropriate educational experiences.
The session will be structured around three thematic discussions:
- Responsible AI innovation in health education – How can AI tools be designed to empower learners without reinforcing bias, exclusion, or harmful patterns of censorship?
- From learning to diagnosis: navigating boundaries – Where should the line be drawn between educational AI tools and health services, and what regulatory frameworks are needed to protect learners, especially minors?
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Impacts on learner well-being – How does AI affect the emotional, social, and psychological health of learners, and how can tools be developed to minimize risks while strengthening safety and support?
Key Questions for Discussion
Participants will be invited to reflect on a range of pressing questions:
- How can AI-driven health education tools be developed to reflect the diversity of learners’ contexts and identities, while avoiding the reinforcement of harmful stereotypes or exclusion?
- What mechanisms are needed to ensure that young people and educators are meaningfully engaged in the design, governance, and evaluation of AI tools for health education?
- How should policymakers and developers define clear boundaries between AI for learning purposes and AI for medical advice, particularly when tools provide personalized support?
- In what ways can existing regulatory and ethical frameworks in education and health be adapted to guide the responsible use of AI at this intersection?
- How can AI systems be monitored for unintended effects on learners’ emotional, social, and psychological well-being?
- What promising practices exist for designing AI to actively promote safety and inclusion in educational settings, such as detecting online bullying or supporting mental health?
- What safeguards are needed to protect learners’ data, privacy, and rights?
Speakers
- Libing Wang – Chief of Section, UNESCO Health and Education
- Isabelle Amazon-Brown – AI for Health Expert
- Alu Azege – Executive Director, Media Health and Rights Initiative of Nigeria; Founder of PadiChat
- Ekaterina Samolygo – Project Coordinator, UNESCO IITE
- Samia Pinto Firmino – Digital Innovation Specialist & AI-for-Children Researcher
- Alice McGee – Senior Medical Advisor, Flo
- Donald Tererai – Digital Learning Specialist, UNESCO ESA Regional Office
- Megan Coder, PharmD, MBA – Specialist in digital health policy, product assessment, and real-world impact
- Davy De Geeter – Head of Clinical and Healthcare Partnerships, Wysa
- Mariya Stoilova – Researcher, Global Kids Online, London School of Economics
- Kim R. Sylwander – Postdoctoral Research Officer, Digital Futures for Children Centre, London School of Economics
Facilitators:
- Kathleen Chau – Programme Specialist, UNESCO
- Yulia Plakhutina – Programme Officer, UNESCO IITE
How to Join
The Open Ideas Lab will take place in Room VIII, UNESCO HQ, Paris, and will also be accessible online.
🔗 Register here to join the session online
