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 Juvenile Innovation Center
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 in Sierra Nevada
In 2026, Albalab will open a center in the coffee-growing region of Palmor in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Coffee is cultivated here using traditional methods, and many farms lack access to modern technology and technical expertise. Through the Albalab center, young people will learn to use digital tools, sensors, and automation to make coffee production more efficient, sustainable, and climate-resilient. The goal is to provide the local community with its own technological capacity — so that the solutions of the future are developed and maintained by the youth themselves.
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.
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.
AI makes the teacher more important - and the school outdated
Albalab shares in this essay published in Minerva our experiences with the use of artificial intelligence in educational programs for young people.
From the essay:
“But to Mong’s question of whether the teacher is becoming obsolete, the answer is no. The role simply will no longer be about ‘teaching’.
The teacher is not the problem here. It is the school’s institutions — the way we organize learning — that no longer fits.”
Digital Capacity Must Be Built from the Ground Up
In January 2026, we published the essay Digital Capacity Must Be Built from the Ground Up in Panorama Nyheter as part of the debate on digital sovereignty and open systems.
The School and the digital revolution
In this article published in Stavanger Aftenblad, we write about our experiences with educational projects for children and young people based on practical, community-centered initiatives, and how this philosophy should also form the foundation of the public education system.
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.
Auomated 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.
