The Pardes Day School AI for Education Challenge

Anything you made with AI that improves something in education, and that actually works. Judaic and general studies count equally: Chumash and chemistry, kriah and long division. Simple or sophisticated, it counts. For example:

• A great worksheet: one excellent worksheet made with AI counts.
• A video or video series: teaching videos made with AI tools.
• A prompting method: your repeatable way of getting what you need from AI.
• A review game: turns this week's material into a game, parsha or fractions.
• A kriah practice generator: leveled reading sheets from your target sounds.
• A math practice builder: fact fluency or word problems at exactly each group's level.
• A parent email workflow: teacher notes become clear parent updates.
• Differentiated worksheets: one lesson, three levels, automatically, in any subject.
• A writing feedback assistant: comments on student drafts in your voice, tied to your rubric.
• A custom chatbot: answers your class's questions your way.

And anything like them: apps, automations, lesson planners, dashboards, curriculum tools.

No coding required. Impact is what wins. Technical sophistication is not a judging criterion.

A worksheet system that transformed your kriah groups or your math centers can beat a polished app nobody uses.

What does not qualify:

• Ideas only
• Mockups that do not work yet
• Generic ChatGPT use with no repeatable system
• Anything shown with identifiable student data
• Work you did not create
• Content you do not have permission to share

It must be yours, it must be real, and it must work today.

Yes, fully. The Challenge is for Jewish educators in Jewish educational settings, and the work itself can come from any part of the school day: Judaics, general studies, specials, or school operations. A math practice builder counts exactly as much as a kriah tool.

1. A writeup of up to 200 words: what problem you are solving, how what you made solves it, and whether it is already in use.
2. A video of up to two minutes showing it actually working.

That is the whole entry.

A strong writeup reads like this: "My 2nd graders were losing kriah fluency over every long break. I built a prompt system that generates leveled practice sheets from the sounds each group knows. I have used it since Chanukah with three reading groups, and parents now ask for the sheets at home." The problem, the tool, the proof, in plain words.

A strong video is a simple screen recording with your voice over it: show the problem, then show your tool solving it, with dummy data. No editing or production needed. If your video runs long, judges watch the first two minutes.

Camera shy? Your face never appears unless you want it to, and even narration is optional: a silent screen recording with your writeup doing the talking is a valid entry. And if you want to show more than the video, the entry form has an optional field for a link to your work.

Any of these works. One take is fine, no editing needed. Talk while you show if you like (narration helps but is not required), keep it under two minutes, and use dummy data. Your face never needs to be on camera.

• Just film it with your phone: point your camera at the screen or the worksheet and explain what it does. A regular video from your camera roll is a perfect entry.
• iPhone screen recording: open Settings, then Control Center, and add Screen Recording. Swipe down from the top-right corner, press and hold the record button, tap Microphone On, then tap Start Recording and talk while you use your tool. The video saves to your camera roll.
• Android screen recording: swipe down twice from the top and tap Screen Record. Allow the microphone so your voice is captured.
• Mac: press Command + Shift + 5, choose Record, and pick your microphone under Options so your voice is included.
• Windows: press the Windows key + G to open the Game Bar, then hit record with the mic on.
• Loom (free): loom.com records your screen and voice together and gives you a link. Paste the link into the entry form instead of uploading.

Then go to the entry form and either upload the file (under 1 GB, straight from your camera roll) or paste the link.

This is not a hackathon. It is a showcase of real AI work already helping Jewish education.

Across Jewish schools, teachers and administrators are quietly making remarkable things with AI. Almost nobody outside their own building ever sees them. This Challenge puts that work on a stage.

Why is a school hosting this? Because somebody should. Pardes teaches age-appropriate AI literacy starting in 3rd grade and runs every day on tools its own team built with AI, and we want the educators building these things, in any school, anywhere, to be seen. Pardes provides the stage, the judging, and the prizes. The work, and the credit, stay yours.

You do not need to have built an app. You need to have solved a real educational problem. If you built it this past school year, you already have your entry. Built it earlier? It counts too, as long as it works today.

Any Jewish educator, anywhere in the world. Open to teachers, moros, rebbeim, administrators, specialists, and support staff in Jewish educational settings worldwide. Enter alone or as a team of up to three.

Day schools, yeshivos, preschools, and any other Jewish educational setting all count. Entrants must be 18 or older. Pardes Day School staff and their immediate families may submit for the public showcase but are not eligible for prizes.

The complete version: the official rules and privacy notice.

No. Worksheets, videos, prompting methods, generators, automations, and workflows all qualify. We judge impact, not technical sophistication.

Yes. That is exactly the point: this Challenge is about showing off what you already built. There is no build-date cutoff. If it works and it is yours, it qualifies.

None at all. Pardes hosts the Challenge and funds the prizes; the competition itself is for Jewish educators at any school, anywhere in the world. Entries are judged on impact, not affiliation, and judges recuse themselves from any entry they are personally connected to.

Yes. The Challenge is open to Jewish educators worldwide.

You never send us the tool, the code, the prompts, or your files, and we do not want them. Your entry is a video of your work, for three reasons:

• We want to see it working. A real demo, in real use, tells us more than any description could.
• It shows the work is real and it is yours. A quick walkthrough in your own voice is the best proof there is.
• Most important: your work belongs to you. It stays on your computer, in your hands, the whole time. We only ever see the video, and you choose what to show.

Yes, up to three people per entry. One prize per winning entry.

Up to three entries per person or team, and only one can win a prize. Each entry gets its own writeup and video; after you submit, tap Submit Another Entry on the confirmation screen. Built more than three things? Enter your three strongest. And if one project needs several clips, paste a playlist or Loom folder link as the video.

No identifiable student names, faces, or records. Use dummy data or anonymize. Entries showing real student information are disqualified.

Judges look for evidence, not hype.

Responsible use is a requirement, not a score.

The panel scores every entry; judges recuse themselves from any entry where they have a personal or professional connection. Before winners are finalized, each finalist does a brief private walkthrough of their tool with a judge; dummy data is welcome.

It is a $1,000 cash award, and only entrants decide it. Every entrant gets a private ballot and ranks their top three finalist videos. You cannot vote for your own entry. Chosen by fellow builders, not by public votes. And because different voters decide it, one entry can win both a placed prize and the Educators' Choice Award.

Strong entries, winning or not, are published in the Challenge showcase with full credit. Before a nonwinning entry is published, we email you a heads-up with a link to opt out.

For the three placed prizes, you choose the AI tools and we cover them. Any AI platform counts, from the big labs to video, voice, image, and education tools, and you can put your prize toward one platform or split it across several. The Educators' Choice Award is paid in cash. Details are arranged directly with each winner.