Politico January 9, 2026
Alex Kotran has introduced AI into hundreds of K-12 schools as the CEO and co-founder of aiEDU, an education tech nonprofit that counts OpenAI and Nvidia among its backers. Kotran’s organization works with school systems to integrate AI into curricula, helping to develop futuristic classrooms where kids learn how to use the technology and build models themselves. Kotran talks about why human teachers are irreplaceable, and what the history of kerosene might tell us about the future.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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