Inclusion through AI: Start of impact in education

Julie de Barbeyrac represented UNICEF at AI Summit Sarajevo 2025 — Kiss The Future organized by Blum Institute with the theme "The End of Hype. The Start of Impact." This comprehensive two-day event represented the most ambitious AI conference in southeastern Europe, bringing together 40+ leading experts from over 25 international companies.

Julie is an Innovation Manager at UNICEF’s Learning Innovation Hub, where she leads the Accessible Digital Textbooks (ADT) initiative. Since 2017, she has driven the global “Accessible Digital Textbooks for All” initiative, now present in 12 countries, harnessing technology and AI to make education inclusive for children with disabilities. With 20 years of international experience in health, disability inclusion, and accessible EdTech, Julie has shaped global strategies within UNICEF across New York and Latin America and advised leading organizations including Inclusive Development Partners, EdTech Hub, UNESCO, and Disability Education and Development (DED). She is committed to ensuring that every child, regardless of ability, has equitable access to quality and inclusive education.

1. Contextualizing Global Initiatives for BiH:

Julie, the 'Accessible Digital Textbooks for All' initiative is now in 12 countries. Based on your global experience, what do you see as the most critical first steps or key success factors for adapting such a program to a specific context like Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has a complex governance structure and diverse educational needs?

From my global experience, the first priority is always building strong national ownership and leadership, which means bringing all levels of the ministry of education and inclusive/special education on board from the start and throughout the process. In countries with complex governance structures like Bosnia and Herzegovina, this means engaging early and consistently with all levels of government that are interested (ministries of education, ministries of technology, curriculum agencies, and local authorities) to ensure alignment and buy-in. 

Equally important is inclusive co-design with teachers, disability organizations, and learners to ensure the textbooks are both accessible and relevant to the local pedagogical requirements. Success comes from embedding clear standards on inclusion and accessibility in the curriculum and building local capacity so that ADTs are integrated into national education plans and sustained over time. Finally, evidence generation through pilots, evaluations, and user feedback is essential to demonstrate impact, build trust, and guide scale-up.

2. Leveraging Technology for Inclusion in BiH's System:
Your work heavily utilizes technology and AI. In BiH, we face challenges like varying levels of digital infrastructure between urban and rural areas, and a need for teacher training. How can an initiative like ADT be designed to be both technologically advanced yet practical and sustainable within these constraints, ensuring we don't widen the digital divide?

In our ADT work across 12 countries, we’ve learned that technology only creates real value when it is adapted to the local context and infrastructure realities. That’s why we always begin with a thorough analysis of education system readiness and adapt implementation accordingly. Recognizing that many countries face a similar digital divide and given UNICEF’s mission to reach the most vulnerable children, the new AI-generated ADTs are designed to work on any device and offline, ensuring that schools in both urban and rural areas can benefit without dependance on high connectivity.

At the same time, tools alone are not enough. We are training and will continue to train teachers not only on how to use the technology, but also on how to integrate ADTs into lesson plans and apply inclusive strategies for classrooms with limited devices. By combining cutting-edge AI inclusive solutions, offline access, and strong teacher support, we ensure the initiative is both advanced and practical, helping to bridge rather than widen the digital divide.

3. Partnership and Local Ecosystem Engagement:
Successful implementation in BiH requires strong partnerships with government ministries, local Disabled Persons Organizations (DPOs), and publishers. From your experience in other countries, what strategies have proven most effective for building these multi-stakeholder alliances and ensuring ownership is truly local from the very beginning?

From our ADT work in 12 countries, we’ve seen that successful implementation always begins with early and continuous government engagement and the creation of multi-level alliances with ministries, publishers, DPOs, teachers, and non-traditional actors all working together. This alignment of political will and inclusion of diverse perspectives ensures ownership is truly local from the very beginning.

Equally important is adaptability. Each country has different infrastructure and governance realities, so we design solutions flexibly and co-create them with local stakeholders. Teachers play a central role as mediators of inclusion, so their training and ongoing support are critical to ensure ADTs translate into real classroom change. 

Finally, experience shows that ADTs can act as a driver of systemic and irreversible transformation when they are embedded into curricula and publishing processes. To sustain this, we prioritize institutionalization and evidence generation, such as building local monitoring systems and demonstrating impact to secure long-term commitment.

4. Connecting Early Education with Re-skilling:
The Pannel you were the part of was about educating the next generation and re-skilling the current one. How does making educational materials accessible for children with disabilities naturally create opportunities for re-skilling teachers, content creators, and software developers in BiH? Can you give an example of how this 'ripple effect' has worked in other countries?

When we make educational materials accessible for children with disabilities, it generates positive change across the entire education system. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, if ADTs are introduced, teachers gain new skills in inclusive pedagogy and digital lesson planning, and content creators and publishers learn to integrate accessibility standards into their work and on how to use the new AI generated pipeline, and software developers adapt platforms to universal design principles. Importantly, it also means young people in schools gain digital literacy and inclusive skills that prepare them for an AI-driven future, building resilience and employability beyond the classroom. 

We’ve seen this in countries like Kenya and Rwanda, where the ADT initiative not only produced accessible textbooks but also re-skilled teachers, trained publishers to adopt accessibility guidelines, and gave young learners hands-on exposure to digital and inclusive tools. The result was a stronger, more future-ready education system that is better equipped to serve all children and to prepare young people for the world of work.

5. Measuring Tangible Impact:
Beyond the number of accessible textbooks created, what are the key indicators of meaningful impact you look for in the ADT initiative? How can we, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, measure whether this is truly improving learning outcomes, classroom inclusion, and the overall well-being of children with disabilities?

Beyond counting the number of accessible textbooks produced, what really matters for UNICEF are the indicators that show children’s lives and education systems are improving. In the ADT initiative, we focus on four main areas of impact:

1. Learning outcomes – Are children with disabilities gaining foundational skills in literacy and numeracy at the same level as their peers? Are teachers reporting greater engagement and independence?
2. Classroom inclusion – Are children with disabilities actively participating in class activities? Do teachers have the tools and confidence to include them in group learning and assessments? Is stigma and segregation being reduced?
3. Child well-being and equity – Are children with disabilities staying in school longer, showing improved confidence and meaningful participation, and reporting a stronger sense of belonging? Are peers without disabilities more sensitive to inclusion and creating strong friendship with children with disabilites? Do families feel education is more inclusive and relevant?
4. System-level change – Are ministries, publishers, and teacher training institutes embedding accessibility standards into their policies and practices, for example, through pre- and in-service trainings of teachers? Is there evidence that inclusive digital textbooks are becoming part of national education strategies and budgets, ensuring sustainability?

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, this would mean combining quantitative data, such as attendance, retention, and learning outcomes, with qualitative evidence from teachers, learners, parents, and OPDs, while also monitoring how the system itself is adapting to deliver inclusion at scale.