LIVE: First Lady Participates in the Presidential AI Challenge National Champion Awards Ceremony

Ladies and gentlemen, the first lady of the United States, Melania Trump. Hello everyone and welcome to the White House. What a beautiful group. Congratulations to our Presidential AI Challenge winners. It is wonderful to see this very impressive group of innovators at the White House today. I am proud that you represent the best of America. You are our future. Thank you to Secretaries Wright and Rawlings for being here today. Your support of this program is a key to its ongoing success. I also want to recognize everyone who took part in this first AI contest. Students, educators, parents, and administrators. Yes, you could applaud. Today is about opening doors. When the doors open, passions flow, courage blossoms, and dreams are realized. AI inspires. Use this chapter of your life to sail away with your dreams, to continue to build boldly and, importantly, to safeguard America's leading position in the world of technology. As you know, technology supports every business sector today. You saw AI's potential and created ideas that will shape America's future in many areas, including health care, nutrition, public safety, and beyond. The first Presidential AI Challenge was broadly welcomed across our nation. More than 20,000 students participated across all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and 49 Department of War schools in 10 countries around the world. And we are just at the beginning. Artificial intelligence gives our communities access to the largest amount of information ever recorded in humanity's history. This fundamental democratization of intellect will profoundly alter society, our industries, our social safety net, and even our open-mindedness toward cultural diversity. Wisdom is tolerance, and change will be enhanced at hyperspeed. AI is transformative. Nature opens new possibilities. AI can help us build a stronger community, making our publicly-founded social programs more efficient and more effective. It allows us to deliver more personalized education and, in return, will unlock growth in America's economy. Keep using artificial intelligence as a muse to open new pathways and, ultimately, to achieve personal growth and success. Today is about new beginnings. Don't be reluctant to push that door open. Be bold with your dreams and brave with your actions. And now it's my pleasure to welcome Director Kratios, who patronage for technology stands out and whose commitment to keeping America's children ahead at the AI curve will leave a lasting impression. Please, Michael. Thank you so much, Madam First Lady. It's a great honor for the President's AI Education Task Force to have your encouragement and your support. And it is thanks to your inspirational leadership throughout the Presidential AI Challenge that we have had the success that we are all celebrating here today. Together, we are helping to prepare America's young people to build the nation of tomorrow with the most advanced tools available to them today. The purpose of this national competition was simple, to bring young Americans from across the country together in using AI tools to improve the lives of their communities. AI is a magical technology, but it can and needs to be demystified. This challenge has empowered every kind of young American, even the ones who aren't focused on science and mathematics, to design incredible technological projects through the creative use of artificial intelligence. The road that brought us to today stretches back more than a year, to April 2025, when President Trump signed the Advancing AI Education for America's Youth Executive Order. This established the AI Education Task Force and inaugurated the Presidential AI Challenge. With the First Lady's leadership and support, this competition has had tens of thousands of participants representing every state in the nation, as she mentioned, as well as D.C., Puerto Rico, and so many Department of War schools all across our planet. Our competitors in this historic challenge produced more than two and a half thousand projects aiming to overcome some of their communities' greatest challenges using AI. They worked on everything, tools that help navigate the complexity of school in the online world, that improve local government efficiency and effectiveness, that synthesize real-world information for crime fighting, that guard their communities against hazardous chemicals, and they all succeeded. I am deeply inspired and I am deeply encouraged by everyone's work. To all of our participants here today, it has truly been amazing to see what you have accomplished. Congratulations, well done, and thank you. The projects you have developed are extraordinary, uncommonly creative applications of a novel technology. You are taking the first steps in making these tools an integral part of everyday life, transforming our world for the better. You are an example to your fellow Americans as they discover their own opportunities to extend and amplify their capacities and their creativity with AI. Thank you again to the private sector supporters of the Presidential AI Challenge who are providing hundreds of thousands of dollars in educational support and prizes for our national and regional champions and their respective schools. I'd also like to recognize our winners on the educator track announced yesterday for their outstanding achievements. Carrie Robledo of Starr Elementary in Starr, North Carolina, put together what she calls the AI Insect Detectives Program, which introduces children to machine learning through the study of local entomology. Congratulations. And our second winner from Camden Catholic High School, team of Ann Winn, Bridget Bash, and Regina Knowlton of Cherry Hill, New Jersey, developed AI Augmented Molecular Design, an AI durable module for AP Biology. Congratulations. You are both blazing trails I hope your colleagues across the country will soon follow. This year, as all of us know very well, we are celebrating 250 years of U.S. independence and ingenuity and the legacy of patriots and pioneers conquering new frontiers and building our future. We all have a privilege of carrying that legacy forward. Today, we are grateful for this opportunity to celebrate the next generation of American exploration and the readiness of these young people to master the frontiers of artificial intelligence. It is now my privilege to announce the winning student teams of the Presidential AI Challenge, and I'd like to invite the First Lady back onto stage to help present the award, Starr National Champions. So first, we have our elementary school winners from Alcoa Intermediate School in Alcoa, Tennessee, the Homework Helper app. Team members included Riker Cochran, Emma Conner, Erin Gallagher, and Aidan Taverna. Can you have the whole team come up together and take a team shot rather than one by one? Yeah, come on over. Congratulations. Second elementary school winner is from Aldi, Virginia, the Friend Zone Chatbot Bullying Prevention app. Team members included Arna Jaiswal, Ishani Kutry, Riva Makhda, Sumitha Pranamareddy, and Sonali Ruthnayaka. Next, I'm happy to announce our middle school winners from North Star Middle School in Sammamish, Washington. SkillUp is an AI tool that assists with craftsmanship, handiwork, and hands-on creation. Veeha Iyer, Arya Prakhtap, and Shreemai Shetty. And the second middle school winner from Julia Landon College Preparatory School in Jacksonville, Florida. The project was an AI model to detect urban blight using Street View images. I think we need this as we're beautifying DC. This is amazing. Sean Vance, congratulations. So finally, we have our high school winners from Upper Darby Senior High School in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. The project was an AI-powered computer vision tool that assists investigators with hotel identification from evidence images. Congratulations, Khandekar Mahin. And our final high school winner is from North Allegheny High School in Sewicki, Pennsylvania. The project is Iris, an edge AI navigation assistant for visually impaired users. Congratulations, Alexander Du. Amazing. So let's give all of our finalists, winners, a big round of applause. It truly is amazing. Congratulations, guys. So this concludes our awards ceremony. Congratulations again to all of you. And thank you for participating in the Presidential AI Challenge and for all joining us here in the beautiful White House. Now please join us in the Rose Garden for a reception and further celebration. Congratulations, guys.