The Presidential AI Challenge Is An Excellent Idea!

Presidential AI Challenge Thumbnail ImageDon’t let political hate blind you from an amazing opportunity. The Presidential AI Challenge would have been awesome when I was back in school. Let’s be real here. The next generation could be facing the toughest job market of all generations. How are you going to build a career if the machines (AI) can do it faster, cheaper, and better than you? It starts here! You can use your head start to become a technological leader!

If you have kids in an American K-12 school, or if you’re an educator in such a school, this is a huge opportunity. YUGE! First off, there are prizes. Each team member that wins the National Championship gets $10,000. That’s what it says in the Challenge Guidebook.

This addresses one of the biggest problems with education in the United States. It’s too academic. The information learned needs to be applied to be practical, to build a better life, to build a better nation. That appears to the point of the competition. The main goal is to identify a problem that could be solved by AI — and then build that solution!

That is amazing! The kids who participate in this stand to learn so much more, at much quicker speeds, by actually doing something! Instead of just warming a chair and taking tedious tests, they’re doing something real. And if they succeed, that builds a better world for everybody.

This is such a great idea, but partisan hackery could ruin it. People might hold back opportunities from kids, simply out of political spite. That would be a tragedy, for the students, the nation, and even for the people trapped in that blind hate.

What if that’s not you? Maybe you don’t care about politics. Maybe you don’t like Trump as president, but you’re still willing to give the idea a chance — but all this competition and computer stuff seems confusing.

Well there’s a video about What Is The Presidential AI Challenge on Photics.TV.

The beauty of the way the competition is setup is that it’s centered around teamwork. Maybe your kid is a computer genius, but lacks public speaking and presentation skills to participate in this challenge. That’s where a team could help. That’s why this is so important. The students could learn so many things in such a short time. Proposal writing, design, video editing, presentation, politics, AI, civics — the list of possibilities is extensive!

…and the time is short!
The project submission deadline is January 20, 2026.

The paperwork can be a bit intimidating, but it didn’t look too bad. Again, that’s the beauty of forming a team. The Guidebook says for Middle School and High School Youth Category, “Eligible groups will consist of 1-4 students and one Supervising Adult who will submit the Challenge project.”

So, hopefully this article and the Photics.TV video are encouraging. If you are thinking about entering the competition, see the official website for details. Other than being an American citizen, I have no affiliation with the competition. I just like the idea. 😄

Here are some helpful links…