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Pi Jam Unconference on AI in K-12 Education: Voices, Experiences and Questions
Mumbai | 19 April 2026 | 10 AM – 5:00 PM

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What if conversations about AI in education were shaped not by panels and presentations, but by the people experiencing it every day?

Pi Jam Foundation is hosting its first Unconference on AI in K-12 Education, bringing together students, teachers, researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and parents for a dialogue space where conversations are shaped collectively by participants.

Why Do Conferences Sometimes Feel Unequal?

Conferences are often imagined as places where ideas move freely, where people gather to learn, reflect, and exchange perspectives as equals. In reality, many of us know that simply sharing a venue does not mean sharing the same experience of participation. Some people enter these spaces with ease and assurance; others arrive carrying uncertainty, hesitation, or the quiet question of whether their voices will truly be welcomed.

This gap between intention and experience is not accidental. It is produced by the way conference spaces are structured – by who is invited to speak at length, how knowledge is packed, which languages dominate, and whose confidence is read as competence. Over time, these patterns become normalised, even as conferences continue to describe themselves as inclusive and open.

A recent article by Srishti Gupta and Kumar Unnayan articulates these concerns powerfully, naming how social sector conferences in India often reproduce hierarchies of language, power, and authority despite good intentions. Their writing resonates because it puts words to what many participants quietly feel but rarely name.

Rethinking the Conference Format

This unconference is not just inspired by that critique, it is a deliberate attempt to interrupt it. Rather than working within the usual conference architecture and hoping for better outcomes, we are intentionally dismantling some of its core assumptions. We are stepping away from stages, panels, and speaker-audience divisions. We are questioning the idea that expertise must be performed in a particular language or format. We are redesigning the space itself so that participation is not an exception, but the default.

In this unconference, inclusion is not an afterthought layered onto an existing structure. It is the starting point. The format is shaped around conversation, shared inquiry, and collective sense-making so that people do not have to struggle to find a place within the room, but can enter it already feeling belonged.

Why an Unconference?

Most conferences rely on a familiar format: panels, sessions, presentations, time slots, and titles. These structures are efficient, but they also shape behaviour. They subtly decide who is expected to speak at length, who is invited to respond briefly, and who remains an audience member throughout.

An unconference asks a different question:

What might happen if we removed the stage?

What if there were no designated speakers for the day?

What if there were no audience at all and everyone participated as an equal contributor?

The Pi Jam Unconference on AI in K-12 Education

On 19 April 2026, Pi Jam Foundation will host an Unconference in Mumbai focused on AI in K-12 Education: Voices, Experiences and Questions.

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly entering classrooms across the world. Teachers, students, researchers, and policymakers are all encountering its possibilities and challenges in different ways.

Yet conversations about AI in education often happen in fragmented spaces.

Teachers experiment with tools in classrooms.
Students interact with AI in their daily learning.
Researchers study its implications.
Policymakers design frameworks around it.

Rarely do these voices come together in the same room to think collectively.

This unconference creates a space where these perspectives can meet.

There are no keynote speakers and no passive audiences. Sessions are proposed and led by participants on the day itself – a storytelling circle, an open debate, a design workshop, a quiet conversation, or even a drawing exercise. There are no slides required and no single correct way to share. The space is designed as a roundtable without hierarchy, where conversation is the primary mode of engagement and every voice carries equal weight. Participation here is shaped by curiosity, lived experience, and a willingness to think together.

Who Is This Space For?

This unconference welcomes and brings together students, teachers, policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and parents who are often spoken about, spoken to, or spoken for, but rarely invited into the same room on equal footing.

Each of these stakeholders encounters AI differently, yet they rarely find opportunities to meet in the same room and share perspectives. None of these viewpoints is complete on its own. Together, they offer something richer.

We welcome different forms of expression: stories, questions, disagreements, reflections, pauses, art etc. Language, medium, and mode of communication are flexible. You do not need to sound a certain way or know the right terminology to belong in this space.

An Invitation

This unconference is an experiment. It may feel unfamiliar, less certain and more open-ended. That is intentional.

If you’ve ever felt that your experiences deserve room to be shared and heard…
If you’re drawn to conversations that unfold through listening rather than performance…
If you believe that thinking about AI grows stronger when diverse voices think together…

You belong in this conversation.

Come as you are.
Bring your questions.
Let’s make space to think together.

Event Details

Location: Mumbai (BMC Marathi Bhandup School)| Date: 19 April 2026 |Time: 10 AM – 5:00 PM

This will be a small curated gathering designed to encourage meaningful conversations and dialogue. Seats are limited.

If this space resonates with you, we invite you to register your interest.

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Reference

Social sector conferences are not for everyone