Dr. Elvira Salazar
National Director of Online Learning and Technology at Latinos for Education
Dr. Elvira Salazar grew up in a multilingual home where she was taught that being quiet was a virtue. School became her place of liberation. Now she leads technology initiatives at Latinos for Education, where she works to ensure Latino communities aren't left out of conversations about how AI shapes education. When she saw automated scoring systems silencing multilingual learners, she helped her educators fight back — with AI.
How They Use Playlab
Through a nine-month leadership fellowship, Elvira introduced Latino educators to Playlab as a way to build agency over the problems they were seeing. A team of educators created Elevating Your Speaking — a bot that coaches multilingual students on speaking skills for English proficiency exams. It provides the frequent, low-stakes practice that one teacher managing 25 students can't offer. One developer has already shared it with her school district, and they're expanding the concept.
Impact
Elvira's work is challenging a system where multilingual learners' scores drop because automated grading can't properly hear them. By putting AI tools in the hands of the educators closest to these students, she's ensuring the communities most affected by flawed technology are the ones building better alternatives. As she puts it: "This was an opportunity to not continue that story."
Their Apps
Erin Kupferberg
Director of Research, Data, and Strategy at Kingsman Academy Public Charter School, Washington DC
Erin has spent over a decade using data to drive equitable education outcomes — from creating charter school accountability report cards to shaping DC's ESSA framework. Now at Kingsman Academy, she's building AI-powered tools that give teachers what they've always needed: standards-aligned, scaffolded, culturally relevant lessons that meet every student where they are.
How They Use Playlab
Erin built a Playlab app that generates complete, project-based lesson packages for Kingsman Academy teachers. Teachers input their subject, standard, and proficiency level, and the app produces both a student packet and a teacher guide — scaffolded from foundational (2.0) through advanced (4.0) on Marzano scales, with SPED accommodations, DC-relevant examples, mini-lessons, check-for-understanding questions, and exportable Google Docs.
Impact
Teachers at Kingsman who previously spent hours building differentiated lessons from scratch can now generate complete, standards-aligned lesson packages in minutes. The tool ensures every lesson is accessible for SPED and multilingual learners, connected to students' lived experiences in DC, and aligned to the school's competency-based framework — making high-quality, individualized instruction the default rather than the exception.
Their Apps
Gabriela Caso de los Cobos Tapia
Adjunct Professor & Academic Director, IE Challenge at IE Business School, Madrid, Spain
Gabriela is an adjunct professor at IE Business School in Madrid and academic director of the IE Challenge, a massive-scale course where over 2,000 undergraduates tackle real-world problems. She uses AI as an antidote to AI overuse — deploying Playlab apps for preparation and reflection while keeping her classrooms analog and device-free.
How They Use Playlab
Gabriela creates Playlab apps for students to use at home — apps that provide coaching, feedback, and preparation for in-class presentations, simulations, essays, and role-plays. Students engage with the apps outside class, then perform live without devices. The apps push students to think critically and reflect personally, making it harder to rely on generic AI output.
Impact
Students arrive to class more confident, think more deeply, and produce work that is unmistakably their own. By separating AI-supported prep from human-only performance, Gabriela has decreased her workload while increasing the authenticity of student work. As she puts it: "AI should support us and help us move faster, without sacrificing our core assets."