The Lab

Prototypes, not position papers.

Most people advising on AI in education have never shipped an AI system. I have. This page is my workbench, kept like a lab journal: the platforms, seminars, coalitions, and experiments where I test what I claim on stage. If an idea survives here, it earns its place in my keynotes and my consulting.

04/2026 – Live Pilot

TransformEducation

An AI learning platform for transformative higher education, running in a live pilot with students at Universität Witten/Herdecke. An AI coach embedded in real student projects, professor-curated domain knowledge as the trusted foundation, and learning science built into the architecture: retrieval practice and spaced repetition are the core loop, not a plugin. Every student owns their data, exportable on graduation.

Next.js · RAG · persistent 4-type learning memory · SM-2 scheduling · self-hosted for data sovereignty
2026 Teaching Now

Understanding AI

A seminar series at Universität Witten/Herdecke and CODE University. Students take language models apart, build with them, and develop judgment: where does AI excel, where does it fail, and where must humans stay responsible? No AI bans, no AI worship. Understanding through building.

UW/H · CODE · 8-session seminar plus compact workshop formats
2026 Shipped

Witten Lab Magazin: KI & Lernen

An interactive online magazine issue on AI and learning at Universität Witten/Herdecke. Instead of writing about AI chat, the magazine contains one: readers discuss the concepts with a live AI directly inside the publication.

Interactive publication · embedded live AI chat
2026 – Writing

The Agency Advantage

My book in progress: how to stop competing with machines and start building the future. Why agency, the capacity to act meaningfully under uncertainty, beats knowledge in the age of AI, and how learning environments develop it deliberately.

Book project · first chapters in development
Ongoing Growing

Zukunftsallianz für Transformative Bildung

A coalition of education experts from German universities with one goal: by 2030, half of German universities should be testing transformative learning concepts. Practitioners sharing what works, instead of another think tank producing reports nobody reads.

Ongoing Nonprofit

Code+Design Initiative e.V.

A nonprofit I co-founded that runs coding camps across Germany, giving young people, many from underprivileged backgrounds, their first experience of building something real with technology. Self-efficacy before syllabus.

1,000+ young people reached in the Ruhr region alone

Smaller Experiments

Not everything needs to become a platform. Some things I build to answer one question.

  • WhatsApp learning coach · Can spaced reflection prompts on a channel people already use build durable learning habits? A lightweight AI coach that checks in, asks, and remembers.
  • OpenBrain · My personal, self-hosted knowledge system: atomic thoughts, semantic search, and task routing, wired into my daily tools. I use it to think, and to understand what AI memory architectures actually require.
  • AI persona studio · Synthetic audience personas that give education marketers structured feedback on campaigns and program descriptions before a single real student sees them.
  • University website assistants · Retrieval-based chat prototypes that answer prospective students' questions from a university's own content, honestly and with sources.
  • German Iceberg Index · An adaptation of MIT's AI labor-market exposure index for the German economy. Early stage: methodology and data sources mapped.

Want a Working Prototype Instead of a Slide Deck?

If your institution is debating AI strategy in the abstract, the fastest way forward is something real: a focused prototype your own people can touch, test, and challenge. That is how I like to start.

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