What ATS Hub Ideas Challenge Participants Are Telling Us About the Future of Learning

When the ATS Hub Ideas Challenge launched, it set out to answer a big question in education: What highly scalable, breakthrough ideas could help students take ownership of their learning while building real academic knowledge? With the first round of teams selected, we have a clearer picture of what educators, researchers, and builders want to change, and it’s more nuanced than simply “add technology.”

Across three competitive phases, the Ideas Challenge helps participants strengthen their ideas and prepare to pursue formal funding to implement and test them. Those who advance to the Prize Phase receive $10,000 to support their work, and three winners will each be awarded $50,000. The 26 teams selected for the Discovery Phase of the Ideas Challenge are now hard at work developing their ideas, with support from a range of experts, specialized workshops, and curated resources.

Here’s what we’re noticing from participants so far and what it tells us about where the field is headed:

1. AI is everywhere, but participants want students to interrogate it, not just use it.
   It’s no surprise that many of the ideas submitted reflect how prevalent artificial intelligence (AI) has become in education. What surprised us was the angle. Rather than positioning AI as a tutor that hands students answers, several ideas flip the relationship, putting students in the role of building, testing, and questioning AI tools, or even catching and correcting AI’s mistakes. The common thread is that participants see critical thinking about AI as a core skill, not a side lesson.
2. Students want a seat in conversations about their own progress.
   Learner agency showed up not just in instruction, but also in how students see their own data. Several concepts center on student-facing tools that help learners understand their own growth, whether by connecting individual assignments into a bigger picture over time or by bringing students into conversations about their progress that have traditionally happened without them. These ideas share a belief that students learn more when they can see where they’ve been and where they’re headed.
3. Not every breakthrough idea runs on AI.
   Other ideas take a different path entirely. Participants are drawing on game-based and play-based learning, family engagement, and academic writing to help learners build knowledge, skills, and agency. This range is a healthy reminder that there’s no single formula for a breakthrough. Whether through technology, new instructional strategies, or offline learning experiences, participants are finding different ways to help students take greater ownership of their learning.

Promising ideas were the starting point for many of the participants. What happens next is where the real work begins. Now, teams are turning their concepts into well-reasoned proposals, including thinking ahead about the expertise and partners they’ll need to bring their ideas to life. As they move through the Discovery Phase, we’re watching them make an important shift: from “We believe this will work” to “Here’s why we believe it could work, and here’s what we still need to learn.” It’s exciting to see participants deepen their use of evidence as they work to turn their ideas into something that can actually reach students.

As Elizabeth Albro from the National Center for Education Research described it, “Innovators aren’t just designing in theory. They’re focused on solutions capable of reaching learners and transforming outcomes at scale.”

The Discovery Phase will continue through Oct. 26. At the end of the Discovery Phase, a panel will review each team’s submission, and video pitches from the highest-scoring teams will be featured during community voting. We hope you’ll take a few minutes to watch, vote, and see what these innovators are imagining for the future of learning.