Questions and answers

Who is Youssef Farouk?

I am an AI in education researcher and EdTech product designer working across Europe and the UAE. I am a British-Egyptian dual national, and an Erasmus Mundus scholar getting three master's degrees in education from Sweden, Germany and Italy.

What is Youssef Farouk's niche?

My niche is cognitive development and Bildung^* in AI in education, from all sides: product design, research, policy, and startups and investments.

* Bildung is the lifelong process of maturing into an autonomous, empathetic, and responsible human being, rather than simply memorising facts or training for a job.

What is cognition-safe AI in education?

Cognition-safe AI in education is AI designed so that learners still do the thinking that builds skill. It protects cognitive load, avoids harmful cognitive offloading, and keeps the learner's cognitive agency, with a human in charge of decisions about the child.

What is the real bottleneck for AI in education?

The bottleneck in AI EdTech is not the technology. It is implementation and the trust of teachers and parents. Resistance pathways for cognition must be designed in from day one, with safeguards, because without them AI does students more harm than good.

What does Youssef Farouk research?

I research AI in UAE schools, in a qualitative framework analysis of whether AI in education strengthens cognitive development and Bildung^*. I am interviewing the top education and AI experts in the UAE, from EdTech companies, school groups and government bodies in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as part of my three master's degrees.

What has Youssef Farouk built?

I designed and built Stories from Home, an app that helps children of expats of any nationality learn their home dialect through stories, starting with an Egyptian pack in pilot testing. At ZEISS SMT in Germany, I build AI assistants and agents for the company's AI transition, from finding the use case to the pilot.