Cognimates

AI Engineers: The Next Generation — Stefania Druga, Google Gemini

Apr 13, 2025 · 21:47

Stefania Druga, a research scientist on Google Gemini, presents Cognimates and its new AI copilot that teaches children to become AI engineers. Built on Scratch’s visual programming, Cognimates lets kids train custom models, program robots, and build games, shifting their perception from ‘AI is magic’ to understanding data and confidence levels. Druga’s design studies with 18 kids from 11 countries showed the copilot doubled programming time by supporting ideation, debugging, and creative agency—never giving answers unless stuck three times. The tool now integrates screenshot analysis and asset generation, with plans to embed the agent across the OS. Druga ties this to the EU AI Act’s mandate for AI literacy, arguing early, hands-on creation is the path to informed users.

The Multimodal Future of Education: Stefania Druga

Oct 24, 2024 · 20:05

Stefania Druga, a research scientist on Google's Gemini team, argues that multimodal AI can transform education by making learning more interactive and critical. She presents Cognimates, an open-source platform she built that expands Scratch to let kids train custom AI models and program smart devices, showing a longitudinal study where kids became more skeptical of AI's intelligence after tinkering. Druga also introduces a benchmark for math misconceptions and demonstrates live demos using the Gemini API—a science tutor that responds to drawings, a math coach that avoids giving direct answers, and a curiosity-driven object identifier—all in under 100 lines of code. She emphasizes the need to cultivate AI literacy early, as 70% of generative AI users are Gen Z, and invites engineers to build tinkering tools that balance agency between learners and AI.