Maria Ntemou is an ICT teacher at the 1st Lyceum of Spata in East Attica, Greece. Her work focuses on integrating Artificial Intelligence and emerging technologies into teaching to enhance inclusion, sustainability, and digital literacy through award-winning initiatives including a student-led, AI-powered, sustainable tourism project. Beyond the classroom, she spent four years at the Ministry of Education, including one year as the Ministry’s representative to the OECD Indicators of Education Systems (INES) in the Department of International Educational Relations.

With 20 years of experience across Greek primary, secondary, and adult education, she has worked with colleague Dr Georgia Kazakou to apply AI and immersive technologies to support equity, sustainability, and youth empowerment.

Their flagship initiative, grECOtrails, is a student-led non-profit that documents sustainable tourism through digital storytelling and AI-powered tools such as speech-to-text, image recognition, and automated video editing. Using AI, the project brings together generated photos, speech-to-text for VR, intelligent video editing, supported AR documents, a responsive chatbot, adaptive educational material, and a range of AI-powered tools such image recognition and automated video editing to create a unified and innovative digital experience. The platform enables students to curate and share local stories via an open-access repository and has earned national awards for educational innovation and inclusion.

A complementary programme on cybersecurity and digital citizenship trains students through drone-based simulations and AI-themed role-play scenarios on algorithmic bias, data privacy, and facial-recognition ethics. Alongside this, a gamified platform enhanced by intelligent tools helps students understand their rights and responsibilities in the digital world while raising awareness of AI bias. Its digital game – Reality or AI? – challenges learners to identify real versus generated content, strengthening critical thinking and digital literacy.

Their eTwinning project, EcoQuesters, in which almost 100 students from different European countries participated (Slovenia, Croatia, Spain, Greece), used generative AI to build VR cities, interactive games, and sustainability missions, aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals.

The forthcoming TimeBridge initiative extends this approach by using AI-powered matchmaking and adaptive interfaces to connect younger and older generations through shared AR/VR experiences.

Ntemou’s work seeks to address two critical and growing gaps: the digital divide among students and teachers, and the intergenerational disconnect that weakens social cohesion and civic participation. She believes there is an urgent need to transform education into a space of inclusive empowerment, where all students — regardless of background — can develop digital literacy, AI fluency, and a sense of purpose through meaningful, real-world learning.