December 4, 2025
To secure an AI future, students need to learn about it today. That's exactly what happened during the 2025 Tech Skills Day yesterday at the Amsterdam Public Library. Approximately 70 high school students from groups under-represented in the tech industry (females, racial and ethnic minorities, low income) came together to learn how AI is reshaping study, training and work.
Under the theme "Preparing for an AI Future", Narcisse Ndeke, the event's keynote speaker talked about the importance of developing personal and unique taste in the era of AI. He challenged students to seek out new experiences, food, culture, music, languages, people outside their bubble, etc. as a way to stay interesting and unique and differentiate yourself from AI. He stressed that telling your own, personal story is the basis of successful branding which is the basis of a successful career as an employee or an entrepreneur.
Panelists Michelle Ivankovic, Daniel Pourasghar, Tammarrian Rogers and J. Rodríguez, ASA spoke to high school students, describing their careers in tech and use of AI and providing tips for success: how to tell your story, how to create the values which will guide through in the career choices you make, learning from your mistakes, and not being defeated by failure and struggle. Students talked to the speakers in smaller groups afterwards.
Two interesting questions posed to speakers by high school students: 'Do you believe in God and how do you practice your values in your career?' and 'How do you make sure your behave ethically in your work?'
During the afternoon, students participated in three workshops:
During PreparationTech's vibe coding workshop, students discussed how to use AI-based, vibe coding tools to test ideas, generate prototypes and code in order to showcase concepts to Web developers, clients and funders. After a quick tutorial on effective prompting, we challenged students to create prototypes for new apps, games, social media platforms and Web sites. Our students were blown away by the quality of their prototypes, which included a multiplayer music game, a love calculator which matches you with your crush, an Amsterdam football hub, a specialty matcha Webshop and (cough, cough) a sugar daddy matchmaking platform for 70+. Vibe coding is yet another digital skill students can put in their digital toolkits.
AI coding tools are coming fast and furious so no need to focus on specific ones. Best to have a basic understanding of coding, including understanding what errors mean and being able to do a little debugging.
All in all, a great event. A big thank you to our event partners: TUMO Amsterdam, OBA (Amsterdam Public Library), NewTechKids and Adyen.