Actu Actu • 2 months ago

Closure of the AI4GOOD Mauritius Festival 2025: An Edition Marked by Creativity, Commitment, and Reflection on the Future of Education

The AI4GOOD Mauritius Festival 2025 concluded on Friday, November 28, at the Institut Français de Maurice (IFM). The festival's final event featured a competition themed "Education & Innovation: Hybrid Art and Local Culture." The closing ceremony, held in front of a full house, celebrated several weeks of creativity, meetings, and experiments blending artificial intelligence, Mauritian heritage, and educational innovation.

Over 240 students from various schools and organizations on the island participated in this 2025 edition, affirming the festival's role as a pedagogical space and laboratory for educational innovations in the region. The showcased productions, including short films and hybrid creations, reflected remarkable creativity and the adoption of AI tools in the service of culture and learning.

"This 2025 edition powerfully demonstrated that when AI meets education, creativity, and local culture, a real dynamic of transformation begins. The exceptional mobilization of students, teachers, and institutions underscored the importance of providing young people with experimental spaces where they can learn differently, collaborate, create, and develop their critical thinking. Witnessing so many talents express themselves maturely reminds us that Mauritius has a youth capable of fostering a rigorous, responsible, and inspiring vision for the digital future. This collective success reflects the ongoing commitment of partners, institutions, and an entire educational community dedicated to preparing tomorrow's citizens," explained Catherine Paya, the competition director for Mauritius.

A Successful Closing Ceremony

Young participants, along with their teachers and mentors, gathered in large numbers to witness the awards ceremony, showcasing the excitement and exceptional mobilization generated by this edition.

Winners in the age categories of 11-15, 15-19, and 19-25 years were announced during the evening:

  • PIXEL EXPLORERS 11-15 YEARS: Ecole du Nord Secondary "ART IGNITION"
  • CODE BREAKERS 15-19 YEARS: Labourdonnais College "THE BOTS"
  • FUTURE DIRECTORS 19-25 YEARS: Université des Mascareignes Applied Computing "LES PIROGUES LUMINEUSES"

Essential Reflection at the Discussion Panel: Rethinking Education in the Era of AI

During the closing ceremony, a discussion panel took place on "Education and Training in the Era of AI - relearning how to learn," featuring Marie Noëlle Elissac Foy, director of The Talent Factory Ltd (Public Relations Consultancy) and public relations consultant, Jean Michel Lavallard, Educational Expert of the AI4GOOD Mauritius festival, Christophe Clanché, Educational and University Cooperation Attaché - French Embassy in Mauritius, moderated by Martine Luchmun, editorial journalist. The panel addressed several key points to stimulate reflection on 21st-century education.

It was emphasized that artificial intelligence is already transforming professions, creating new ones, and rendering others obsolete. The importance of adaptability was underscored: learning, relearning, unlearning, and developing sustainable professional agility to avoid skill obsolescence. The advent of AI has also led to a profound questioning of the relevance of occupations and the human role in digital processes. It was noted that AI, despite its power, lacks intuition, cultural sensitivity, and the capacity to understand the entirety of human complexity. Professions in culture, education, writing, and mediation were presented as the guardians of meaning, impact, and coherence.

The question of AI governance was underscored as central, highlighting the need for everyone—teachers, institutions, and learners—to rethink their relationship with the tool. It was clarified that professions will not disappear, but their survival will depend on the ability to reinvent themselves. The traditional pedagogical model, based on vertical knowledge transmission, was analyzed in light of new practices. It was explained that AI is not intelligent in itself; it only becomes so if the question posed is intelligent, and if the resulting human interpretation is enlightened. Young people will thus need to develop solid critical thinking skills, while teachers will be called to adopt renewed roles: mediators, mentors, and facilitators of inquiry.

The skills of tomorrow were identified: critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, adaptability. AI was described as a powerful assistant, lacking emotion but capable of accessing vast amounts of data inaccessible to the human mind. Therefore, the role of the teacher remains that of ensuring meaning, structure, knowledge, and supporting learning pathways. The transversality of skills induced by AI was also highlighted: it was noted that an individual can now learn new professions throughout their life, with AI enabling the rapid acquisition of skills that were once inaccessible. Finally, the significance of the "status of error" was reaffirmed as essential: understanding students' mistakes, analyzing them, and using them to foster learning remains a cornerstone of contemporary pedagogy.

An Edition that Confirms the Festival's Role as a Major Player in Educational Innovation

This 2025 edition once again demonstrated the capacity of the AI4GOOD Mauritius Festival to mobilize youth, unite institutions, support teachers, and create a unique space where culture, innovation, and artificial intelligence intersect. The success of this third edition confirms the growing importance of multidisciplinary educational initiatives capable of accompanying the digital transformation of society. The festival team invites all partners, teachers, and young talents to the 2026 edition, with the same ambition: to place AI at the service of the common good, inclusion, and creativity.