ES
The 11th Felipe Segovia Symposium hosted a roundtable titled “AI in Your Hands,” in which various experts from the Institución Educativa SEK shared real experiences of how they are integrating artificial intelligence into classrooms, research projects and educational entrepreneurship initiatives. The panel was moderated by Giuseppe Auricchio, Director of Educational Innovation at the Institución Educativa SEK, and featured contributions from David Martín, Deputy Director of the UCJC School of Technology and Science; Félix López, Director of SEK Lab; and SEK-Ciudalcampo teachers Rafael Añez and Mercedes Redondo.
Auricchio opened the session by emphasising that, in a context of “great opportunities and great challenges,” the key is not only to adopt new technologies but to align them with a clear sense of institutional identity and purpose. “There are so many opportunities that, if we are not clear about who we are and where we are going, we get lost,” he warned. In this regard, he presented AI as “one of the greatest opportunities” today and called for a coordinated adoption, with specific training for teachers, students and families, and with well-designed pilots that allow its educational potential to be harnessed “in the best possible way.”
From the university perspective, David Martín outlined several research projects at UCJC in which artificial intelligence is already a key tool and in which students participate as protagonists. He recalled that research “is complex, costly and risky,” and usually limited to master’s and doctoral profiles, but argued that undergraduate and even pre-university students should also have access to that experience. “We are not the kind to make excuses; we are the kind to seek excellence,” he said before explaining how students in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence have contributed to training algorithms in projects involving robots for lift inspection, pelvic health in high-performance sport and personalised robotic prosthetics.
Martín also highlighted a recent study on the actual use students make of AI: “We still have much to learn about how to use it.” As he explained, many students believe they are using it correctly “without trying to cheat,” but in reality they are not taking advantage of it in ways that are truly formative. Hence the importance of guiding and modelling its use: “At the School of Engineering, we believe that the true engine of innovation and science is people, and that our students are not mere receivers of knowledge but co-creators of it.”
The perspective of SEK Lab, presented by Félix López, brought in the lens of entrepreneurship and open innovation. López recalled that SEK was a pioneer ten years ago in creating Spain’s first vertical accelerator for education startups—a space that connects schools, university and the entrepreneurial ecosystem. “We like to aim high: the goal of SEK Lab is to innovate with startups within the schools and the university,” he explained. Over ten editions, the accelerator has analysed more than 700 startups and supported around 100 projects, many of them focused on AI, learning analytics, gamification, mental health and augmented reality, with a survival rate well above the sector average.
López stressed that the purpose of SEK Lab is not only “to discover the next big edtech,” but to put these solutions at the service of real learning for SEK and UCJC students through classroom pilots, mentoring from leading companies and a strong focus on social impact. “If you want to innovate in your classrooms, call SEK Lab,” he encouraged teachers, noting that AI has been present for years in the startups collaborating with the institution, and that the key now is to integrate it coherently with the educational mission.
The panel segment most directly connected to teaching practice was led by Rafael Añez and Mercedes Redondo, who presented the development of an educational chatbot built with Copilot in the Microsoft environment to support their International Baccalaureate students at SEK-Ciudalcampo. Añez noted that AI “can generate a large amount of data and even give convincing answers, though not always accurate ones,” but stressed that “what it cannot do is replace the teacher’s work.” Redondo added: “We know how to accompany students in a tutorial, how to take part in an assessment meeting, how to interpret IB or LOMLOE criteria. AI can help us, but not replace us.”
The teachers explained that their intelligent assistant is a closed system curated by the teacher, using only selected sources—presentations, class materials and specific resources—and designed not to provide automatic answers that solve a student’s task, but to guide their research. “We define everything: which websites it can consult, how it should respond, what pedagogical tone it should use,” Redondo explained. The result is a tool that provides fast and rigorous feedback, helps improve overall student performance and also allows teachers to monitor the real questions and needs of their students.
As a closing message, Añez and Redondo encouraged their colleagues to overcome their fear of these technologies: “We need to stop being allergic to new learning tools. A well-designed assistant saves us time on mechanical tasks and allows us to dedicate more energy to what really matters: guiding, supporting and assessing with human judgement.” The roundtable thus closed a clear through-line with the rest of the Symposium: AI, in the hands of a cohesive and critical educational community, is not an end in itself but a powerful tool to enhance innovation, research and the quality of educational support across the entire Institución Educativa SEK.
