Inclusive and secure artificial intelligence at the service of children
The 18th edition of RomeCup 2025 was the ideal setting to preview the beta version of Pathway Companion, an artificial intelligence-based platform designed to support children and young people with special educational needs (SEN). The event, promoted by the Fondazione Mondo Digitale since 2007, brings together schools, universities, research centres, businesses and institutions to promote training, guidance and educational innovation.
During the workshop “Learning to grow with Pathway Companion. The challenge of inclusive and safe AI tailored to children”, participants were able to explore the features of a platform designed with a radically new approach: an intelligent tutoring system developed in collaboration with experts in technology, education and rehabilitation.
An interdisciplinary partnership
The Pathway Companion project is the result of a strategic collaboration between actors with different skills, united by the common goal of making school inclusion more effective through artificial intelligence.
- Fondazione Mondo Digitale ETS, promoter and coordinator, together with Google.org, which is funding its development. The team is led by Ilaria Graziano (project manager) and Marta Pietrelli (project officer).
- Google.org, as explained by Diego Ciulli, is committed to using AI for accessibility and well-being, ‘to enable more and more people to live their lives supported by technology’.
- Fondazione Don Gnocchi, with Furio Gramatica (Innovation Department) and Anna Cavallini (Child Neuropsychiatry), contributes to the inclusive and clinically sound design of the project.
- ITLogiX, technical partner, has developed the “privacy by design” platform architecture, ensuring anonymity and total data protection, as explained by Andrea Taurchini.
- Roma Tre University, involved in development, testing and training, and in extending the model to other linguistic and cultural contexts (Spain, Portugal).
The workshop was moderated by journalist Mariella Anziano (TGR Lazio).
Artificial intelligence designed for inclusion
Pathway Companion is much more than an educational tool: it is a collaborative model that enhances interaction between schools, families and clinicians. It is designed for children aged 8 to 14 with reading and comprehension difficulties and works with three interconnected AI engines:
- Profiling engine: the adult provides information about the student, and the system suggests compensatory strategies.
- Adaptation engine: transforms teaching materials to improve readability and accessibility (simplification, images, speech synthesis).
- Personalisation engine: learns from feedback and refines educational proposals.
The access point is Arin, an intelligent and inclusive chatbot that guides all users in an accessible, collaborative and secure environment.
What makes Pathway Companion a unique project
- Adaptive and customisable: it does not offer static answers, but evolves with the student.
- Intelligent tutoring: it does not replace the teacher, but supports them in building a personalised learning path.
- Integration into existing work: designed to adapt to practices already in use in schools.
- Support for the entire educational community: not only for students, but also for teachers, families, healthcare professionals and tutors.
- Extensive set of automated compensatory tools: digital texts, speech synthesis, guided comprehension, concept maps.
- Continuous adaptation of content: based on the child's progress, without constant manual intervention.
- Privacy by design: no personal data, only anonymous identifiers chosen by the teacher.
- International scalability: versions in English, Spanish and Portuguese are planned, with content shared by European organisations and the “Vivi Internet, al meglio” programme.
Towards a fairer school
As Tullio De Mauro pointed out, the quality of an education system is measured by its ability to include. In an Italy that has chosen the model of maximum inclusion but still faces structural challenges (training, precariousness, fragmentation of tools), Pathway Companion represents a concrete and scalable response.
It is an educational technology at the service of people, which restores the centrality of the educational relationship and enhances it. It is a travelling companion for those who grow, teach and care. And for those who believe that every child has the right to a school that sees them, listens to them and accompanies them.
