ShiftED Podcast #75 In Conversation with Indra Kubicek • If AI Is The Bus, Let’s At Least Hand Out Seatbelts

Imagine a classroom where students don’t just use AI—they question it, improve it, and build with it. That’s the world we explore with Indra Kubicek, CEO of Digital Moment, a national charity bringing digital literacy, coding education, and social innovation labs to young people across Canada. We talk frankly about what it takes to raise confident learners in a world where AI is everywhere: not more hype or bans, but durable skills like persistence, resilience, and critical thinking that make kids active creators instead of passive consumers.Indra shares how a nontraditional path—from accounting to entrepreneurship to scaling Code Club with Raspberry Pi—shaped her view of modern literacy. We unpack what “using AI well” actually looks like: crafting clearer prompts, verifying claims against credible sources, and noticing when a confident answer is thin or wrong. Rather than treating AI as a cheat machine, we outline classroom strategies that turn it into a lab for judgment and curiosity. On the home front, we explore simple steps families can take to talk about privacy, bias, and algorithmic feeds without needing any specific app in hand.We also zoom out to the policy level. With education governed provincially, access to AI education risks becoming uneven. Indra makes a compelling case for a national AI framework that supports teacher training, safe tools, and baseline equity from rural communities to big cities. The goal isn’t disruption for its own sake; it’s positive, people-first change—like the volunteer-driven coding clubs that kicked off a movement. Give teens real problems, room to experiment, and mentors who listen, and they’ll surprise us with ideas that are both bold and responsible.If you care about raising thoughtful, capable kids who can navigate technology with confidence, this conversation offers a practical roadmap. Subscribe, share with an educator or parent, and leave a review with the one skill you think every student should master next.