Artificial Intelligence is more than a classroom buzzword or a futuristic dream—it’s rapidly becoming the foundation for innovation, especially among young entrepreneurs. Across the globe, high-school students are seizing the opportunity to create meaningful, tech-powered solutions to problems that affect them and their communities. Two such examples are StudySnap and Infinilearn, student-created AI tools for education. It’s not just impressive—it’s proof that AI is a powerful catalyst for youth entrepreneurship. There are also university students who recognize the need to help educators, developing platforms to enhance learning, such as Aryan Bhadouria, CEO and Co-Founder of TeachShare, a student from the University of California, Berkeley. Seeing students of varying ages explore the possibilities with AI, create resources for students and educators, and become entrepreneurs has been incredibly rewarding.
Having taught about AI in my own classroom for more than seven years, I have enjoyed exploring how AI is empowering students to become creators rather than just consumers of technology. I also know several successful students who became entrepreneurs and began building their brand in high school.
Think about Gimkit, created by Josh Feinsilber as a high school student, and Quizlet by Andrew Sutherland. I have seen the impact these tools have on students and educators. Now, with AI everywhere, students are taking it to the next level. There are two high-school student resources that I recently learned about, Infinilearn and Studysnap. High school students created both, and they are great examples of the real-world potential of young innovators who are shaping the future today.
The AI Shift: From Passive Use to Active Creation
In many classrooms today, students interact with AI passively rather than actively, for example, through auto-graded assignments, adaptive quizzes, or content recommendations. With accessible AI tools and platforms, students can now build with AI, solving real problems through apps, websites, and digital services. Current students are creating resources to enhance the learning experience for both students and educators.
These young students are “AI-preneurs” and entrepreneurs. They are combining coding skills, creative problem-solving, and AI to launch startups with real-world impact. These students aren’t waiting until college to pursue entrepreneurship. They’re starting now—identifying problems in their own lives and communities and building tech-driven solutions to meet those needs.
Meet Studysnap: Built by a Student, for Students
One example of this student-led innovation is Studysnap, an AI-powered tool created by Ronil Dubal, an 11th-grade student who recognized a common struggle among his peers: organizing and processing information for tests. He says that “Their experiences helped me better understand what was missing in traditional study tools. I created a survey to ask students about their use of AI in learning and studying, the features they find most helpful, and what motivates them. I also read articles and followed conversations about how AI could shape the future of education,” Dubal says. “I have seen how AI is changing the way my classmates and I learn and study. I wanted to solve the problem of unproductive studying. AI is already disrupting education and has the power to make learning more accessible and engaging for every student.”
Studysnap is easy to use. Dubal explained that Studysnap works by analyzing photos of handwritten notes or textbook pages. It uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to read the text and then employs AI models to understand the content and generate practice quizzes, flashcards, and summaries. The AI can even generate these resources based on often chaotic handwritten pages and transform them into clean, digital study guides. It’s like having a personal study assistant in your pocket.
What makes this even more inspiring is that the creator didn’t have a degree in AI or years of technical experience. Ronil had a clear problem he was trying to solve, a curious mind, and resilience. He says, “Creativity plays a big role in developing AI, especially when it comes to designing tools that are both useful and easy to use.
StudySnap shows the impact of student innovation. It demonstrates how students can identify pain points in their daily lives and utilize AI to develop meaningful solutions that benefit others.
Meet Infinilearn: A Learner-First LMS
Infinilearn is an experimental Learning Management System (LMS) built by Adrian Martinez, currently a senior in high school. Having shifted to homeschooling in the sixth grade, Martinez spent time exploring his interests in a personalized curriculum. During his schooling, he learned website, app, and game development, and explored his own interests. He said he knows, “There are other students who are struggling in the traditional school system, who don’t have the same opportunities that I did.” He decided to design an LMS for optimal student learning. By using “familiar layouts (through a “social media” and “video game” aspect, it would let students adapt while teachers and parents could save time through AI-assisted analytics and tools.”
Creating something like this does not happen overnight. To get started, his initial market research was based solely on LAUSD school data; later market research (the pivot) was from Google Trends, discussions with teachers, and past experiences as he was creating Infinilearn. Martinez initially failed to raise funding and built the platform himself, learning how to develop it through videos, Apple’s documentation, and courses. Version 2 was not too successful, so Martinez shifted to individual learners and provided the platform for free, continuing to seek feedback to improve it for users.
For students creating apps and digital tools, especially those incorporating AI, it requires and builds a variety of skillsets, particularly those in demand for future careers. For Martinez, “Creativity was a huge part of Infinilearn, as I didn’t want to create just a ‘boring LMS’ but wanted to make an experience that felt magical while yet staying familiar.” He sketched UI prototypes and downloaded the top 100 education apps as a way to think about how to improve upon them. He also leveraged his interests as a gamer, taking the best parts of games, such as XP, quests, leaderboards, friends systems, for example, and integrated them directly into Infinilearn’s core.
With Bhadouria & Goldstein, building TeachShare began when they and the team were between the ages of 20 and 21. Their goal? “To help teachers take back their Sundays – they’re the most important people in our society,” according to Bhadouria. To design it, they spoke with 150-200 teachers to shape the product.” As they are not educators, it has helped them apply a technological lens, drawing insights from educators to create a unique solution. The team has been involved in education for some time, both as students and as teaching assistants, tutors, and curriculum developers. Like Dubal and Martinez, Bhadouria and Goldstein continue to reach out to educators to gather more insights to build the best platforms possible. There are also university students who recognize the need to help educators, developing platforms to enhance learning, such as Adam Goldstein and Aryan Bhadouria, the Founders of TeachShare, as well as students from the University of California, Berkeley.
Why AI Can Be A Launchpad for Student Startups
AI is becoming the go-to toolkit for entrepreneurs, many of whom are or will be students in our classrooms. Here are some reasons why I believe that we will see an increase in student creators and innovators with AI.
- You no longer need to be an expert coder or have expensive software to create AI-powered products. With platforms like ChatGPT, Bubble, Make.com, and others, students can prototype, test, and iterate on their ideas without needing extensive coding skills.
- Students understand the challenges of learning, are curious about AI, and also learn quickly how to use technology. They will be able to rapidly prototype, test solutions within their school, and iterate based on real feedback provided from classmates or teachers. Martinez says that “Starting in technology with the view to make something meaningful is the right way to go about creating anything.”
- Building their brand and awareness takes less time with the numerous AI-powered tools available for creating graphics, summaries, and other materials that align with entrepreneurship.
The Entrepreneurial Mindset in the AI Age
Empowering students with AI isn’t just about technical skills. It’s about instilling an entrepreneurial mindset—the ability to identify opportunities, take initiative, experiment, fail forward, and build resilience. AI amplifies this by lowering the barrier to entry and speeding up the innovation cycle. Here’s how educators and mentors can support that mindset:
- Encourage curiosity over perfection: Let students explore tools and reverse-engineer how they might’ve been built.
- Support project-based learning: Let students identify real-world problems and use AI to prototype solutions. Similar to Martinez with Infinilearn and Dubal with Studysnap, what problems are students experiencing, and what can they do to solve them?
- Make entrepreneurship part of the curriculum: Design lessons that promote out-of-the-box thinking and building a brand and business, by leveraging AI and other emerging technologies..
Education’s Role: Nurturing the Builders of Tomorrow
Schools are uniquely positioned to be incubators of youth innovation. With the right mix of support, access, and flexibility, educators can help students turn curiosity into capability. Educators can design interdisciplinary projects that blend AI with writing, science, or social issues. Showcasing student work—whether that’s a class demo day, a pitchfest competition, or applying for grants or showcasing at edtech conferences —is a great way to share powerful learning.
We’re at a fascinating moment in education. AI is transforming the tools we use and the careers our students will pursue. We can’t wait for changes to happen. We have to guide our students to be the ones driving the transformation.
If high school students can build tools like Studysnap and Infinilearn, or university students, such as TeachShare, who decide to support educators, even without being educators themselves, imagine what’s possible when more students are given the tools, time, and encouragement to innovate. Whether it’s a chatbot to reduce teen anxiety, an AI assistant for time management, or an app that supports student learning when they need it, the next big thing could be an idea of one of the students in your classroom right now.
Dubal encourages students “to focus on solving a real problem, build quickly, and get feedback early.” Martinez added that “Making something truly meaningful is hard because if it weren’t, the person with (x problem) would have done it themselves. Just keep an eye open, not everything has to scale to 1 b+ users, even fixing small problems in your community can change a couple of people’s lives.”
Martinez says, “Never shy away from something simply because of your age. Your age is your superpower, and you should treat it as such.” For Dubal, creating an app and balancing a demanding class schedule helps build persistence and resilience, especially knowing that you are creating something for the benefit of others.
Martinez added, “AI has and will continue to change everybody’s lives. Infinilearn provided me with a much deeper insight into how AI can be used for good.” Dubal agrees and wants to continue building the best product he can, benefiting others and growing as an entrepreneur.
My advice is to explore Infinilearn, Studysnap, and TeachShare to see how these tools can be utilized in your classroom and school, and consider how to promote more critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity in students to become innovators with AI.
Want to learn more? Reach out to their teams, or feel free to connect with me, as I have explored each of these options.
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