Where innovation meets inclusion
Albalab
We are a socio-technological laboratory where we explore, learn, and create solutions based on artificial intelligence, education, and community development. Our projects combine critical thinking, technological practice, and social commitment to build more inclusive and sustainable futures.
Albalab Youth Innovation
Through technology-driven projects that benefit local communities, Albalab helps disadvantaged youth develop the skills needed to create good and secure lives for themselves, while also becoming role models who show the way to a new and better tomorrow for their communities.
Albalab at Horasis Global Summit
Albalab Sociotech has been invited to participate as a speaker at the Horasis Global Summit 2026 – one of the world’s leading forums for business, technology, and societal development. Under this year’s theme, Building Tomorrow, leaders, researchers, entrepreneurs, and decision-makers from around the world will come together to discuss how emerging technologies and new societal models will shape the future.
The invitation reflects, among other things, Albalab’s work with youth-led AI and technology projects in Colombia, and gives us an opportunity to bring experiences from local communities in the Global South into an international conversation about education, society, and artificial intelligence.
Collaboration with Federación Nacional de Cafeteros
Albalab is proud to collaborate with the Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia (FNC) on youth-driven technology and innovation initiatives in Colombia’s coffee regions.
Through this collaboration, young people in rural communities learn to use artificial intelligence, digital tools, sensors, automation, and media production to develop practical solutions for local challenges. The initiative combines traditional coffee culture with emerging technologies, helping create more sustainable, resilient, and future-oriented communities while giving youth an active role in shaping their own future.
Albalab Traineeships
Albalab Traineeships offer young adults and recent graduates the opportunity to work closely with young people and local communities in Colombia while gaining practical experience in artificial intelligence, digital communication, community development, and entrepreneurship.
Through a three-month virtual traineeship programme, participants contribute to the development of digital platforms, content creation, AI-powered workflows, and local innovation projects in collaboration with young people in coastal communities, mountain villages, and agricultural regions.
Albalab essays on AI and education
There is a solution
Albalab addresses the crisis in education in this article published by NRK Ytring. The latest PISA results are alarming, but the problems facing schools go far beyond what PISA measures. They are also about young people who lose motivation, who are bored, who experience neither a sense of achievement nor purpose – and who, in far too many cases, fail to complete their education.
But there is now a different and better approach than having one teacher teach 25 students at the same time.
Forbidden knowledge
In his recent essay “Forbidden Knowledge” published by NRK, Albalab’s Øystein Schjetne reflects on how artificial intelligence is transforming learning, childhood, and access to knowledge. Drawing on experiences from youth innovation projects in Colombia, the essay argues that society risks protecting young people from the very technologies that will shape their future — instead of helping them understand and use them responsibly. The article sparked significant debate in Norway about education, AI, and the role of technology in society.
News from the Youth Innovation Center
Automated greenhouse from recycled materials
We are revitalizing traditions and empowering the youth of a coastal village with this innovative automated greenhouse project. Using recycled wood from beaches and plastic bottles, we train young people in 3D design (Blender), sustainable harvesting, and manufacturing. They will learn to program Arduino to automate irrigation, light, and temperature, optimizing the cultivation of herbs and vegetables. This project not only fosters agricultural self-sufficiency in every home but also equips participants with technological skills and a strong sense of environmental responsibility, laying the groundwork for a prosperous and sustainable economic future for the entire community.
AI-based farm maintenance system
Over the past few months, Albalab’s young participants have developed FincaSmart 360, a maintenance management system for repair and maintenance work on farms and other properties.
The agentic system was developed in n8n using a Gemini model, uses Google Sheets for data storage, and communicates with users via Telegram and WhatsApp. Future versions will also incorporate sensors and cameras.
The system is now being implemented at two pilot businesses in the local area.
Costa Viva
Costa Viva is a youth-led media and innovation project created by participants in Albalab, exploring life along the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Through storytelling, digital media, mapping, and environmental awareness, young people document local ecosystems, fishing traditions, food culture, and everyday coastal life — while building digital skills and strengthening the connection between community, nature, and identity.
The project also emerges from a broader social context marked by rapid coastal development, social inequality, and the coexistence of traditional fishing communities with new residential and tourism projects. Costa Viva seeks to give local youth an active voice in shaping the future narrative of their region, while preserving cultural memory and strengthening community belonging in a time of change.
