CTRL+INCLUDE
Shaping Digital Technologies for Youth.
Digital technologies influence how we communicate, learn, access information and participate in society. CTRL+INCLUDE helps children and young people understand how AI, algorithms and digital systems are designed, and how they can contribute to making technology fairer, more accessible and more inclusive.
Project period: May 2026–April 2028
Understanding technology by helping to shape it
Young people will explore how digital technologies work and how algorithmic decisions can affect everyday opportunities, access and participation. The project creates space to ask practical questions about who technology serves, whose needs may be overlooked and how digital systems can be improved.
Strengthening
digital agency
Supporting young people in questioning, understanding and making informed choices about digital systems.
Participants will examine fairness, bias, accessibility and inclusion in age-appropriate ways. Rather than treating technology as something to consume passively, CTRL+INCLUDE will support them in developing ideas, testing perspectives and contributing to more inclusive approaches.
Developing
Co-Creation Skills
Creating opportunities to develop ideas collaboratively and consider different needs from the outset.
Building awareness of fairness & inclusion in AI
Exploring how design decisions can include, exclude or affect people differently.
Critical AI education for young people
Digital technology is part of everyday school life. It shapes how young people learn, communicate and spend time online.
Platforms and AI systems may look neutral. But data, design choices and social values influence what they show, who they include and who they leave out.
What young people explore
How digital systems work
Young people explore how data, algorithms and design choices influence what they see and experience online.
1.
Where bias comes from
They learn that AI can repeat stereotypes and unfair patterns — and that its answers should be questioned.
2.
3.
Learning by doing
In workshops, participants test ideas, experiment with technology and develop their own projects.
Designing for everyone
They ask who a technology is made for and how different needs, abilities and life experiences can be included.
4.
Taking responsibility
They explore both the opportunities and the risks of technology, and how digital design affects people and society.
5.
Finding formats that work for younger learners
We learn which AI EMPOWER topics, examples and activities are clear, engaging and useful for children and young people.
6.
Why it matters
Digital agency
Young people gain confidence to question technology and help shape it.
Critical thinking
They learn that AI results are not automatically neutral, true or fair.
Inclusion
They consider whose needs, data and perspectives may be missing.
Better learning formats
Insights from the project help us make critical AI education more accessible for younger learners.
The Project Timeline
CRITICAL AI EDUCATION
CRITICAL AI EDUCATION
Interested? Read more about
critical AI education
Dive deeper into the wold of Critical AI Education and read our latest blog article about it.
PARTNERSHIP
Working together
CTRL+INCLUDE brings together expertise in inclusive education, responsible technology development, accessibility, human–computer interaction and participatory design.
SCHOOLS
Collaborating together
GEPS
Marktgasse
GRLG 17 Geblergasse
OVS 10
Laarbergstraße
GTPMS
Barbara
Prammer
School
School Center
HTL HAK
Ungargasse
Funded within Talente regional 2025
CTRL+INCLUDE is funded by the Federal Ministry for Innovation, Mobility and Infrastructure (BMIMI) and administered by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) within the programme Talente regional 2025.
FUNDING ACKNOWLEDGEMENT