Project Paideia to Hold Free AI Buildathon for Teens at UVU on November 21
Project Paideia hosts a free AI Buildathon for ages 13 to 18 at UVU on November 21, 2026. Two sessions are available. No coding experience is required.
Ecosystem
The OpenAI-sponsored event will offer two four-hour sessions for students ages 13 to 18, emphasizing student ownership rather than competition. No coding experience is required.
Project Paideia will hold a free AI Buildathon on Saturday, November 21, 2026, at Utah Valley University in Orem, inviting teenagers to identify a problem they care about and use artificial intelligence to build, test, and share a solution.
Participants can choose between two standalone sessions, 8 a.m. to noon or 1 to 5 p.m., in Sorensen Center, room 206 A/B/C. Each student attends one session. The event is designed for ages 13 to 18, with no prior coding experience required.
Led by educator and former principal Dr. Jethro Jones, the buildathon is neither a coding class nor a competition. There are no judges or prizes. Students will choose their own projects and make the decisions, with AI serving as a tool to help them create.
“The key thing is that kids find a real problem that they’re facing,” Jones shared with TechBuzz. “And it doesn’t have to be huge and it doesn’t have to be complex. It just needs to be something that matters to them.”
Students choose the problem and do the building
A project might be a website to organize a winter coat drive, a game, or a tool that helps a family or community. Students will use AI tools, including Codex, to develop their ideas, test what they build, and explain their work to others.
Each session will conclude with an opportunity to demonstrate what participants created and discuss their decisions, including where AI helped and what they would do next.
Parents and volunteer mentors will support the process without taking it over. Their role is to ask questions about what students have tried, where they are stuck, and what they might do next. The adults stay off the keyboard.
Jones said a finished product is a goal, but not the only measure of a worthwhile experience.
“The value is not in actually being done,” he said. “The value is in starting and wrestling through and figuring things out.”
An educator’s approach to student agency
Jones has led schools at every level from kindergarten through high school. As a middle school principal in Fairbanks, Alaska, he had students spend three hours a week throughout the school year solving real problems they chose. He also designed a K–12 magnet school there centered on student agency and applied learning.
The buildathon adapts that approach to a four-hour format, using AI to help students move more quickly from an idea to a working prototype.
Jones’s education background includes recognition as a NASSP Digital Principal of the Year and Alaska Region 3 Principal of the Year in 2017. He is the author of SchoolX and How to Be a Transformative Principal and founded the Transformative Principal podcast and the BE Podcast Network.
In 2026, he earned an Ed.D. in educational leadership from the University of Missouri–St. Louis, with a dissertation examining how school principals use AI for innovation. He now runs Optimization Doc, which helps organizations put AI to work in their daily operations.
A parent-led effort with plans to expand
Project Paideia began with a group of fathers discussing how to prepare their children for an uncertain future, Jones said. Its name draws on the Greek concept of educating the whole child.
“This is about preparing kids for the future and knowing that they can contribute and build something regardless of their own circumstances,” Jones said.
OpenAI and Network School are the event’s headline sponsors. According to Jethro Jones, OpenAI has donated AI credits for every participant. Additional community and individual sponsors are listed on the Project Paideia website.
Project Paideia is organizing the event independently, with UVU serving as the venue. Jones told TechBuzz this first buildathon as a pilot, with plans to offer similar four-hour events in more communities.
Registration and what to bring
Families can register at projectpaideia.com/register, selecting either the morning or afternoon session. Registration is free, with one registration per student, and the registration pages indicate that attendance is subject to host approval.
Students should bring a laptop and charger. Organizers said loaner laptops will be available for participants who need one. Snacks will be provided, but meals are not included.
Sponsors and volunteers interested in supporting the event or future buildathons can visit projectpaideia.com or email hello@projectpaideia.com.
