Melania Trump on Tuesday hosted the first White House ceremony for the Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge National Champion Awards, honoring K-12 students and educators for projects designed to apply AI to real-world community problems. The event, held at the White House, celebrated the winners of a national competition President Donald Trump launched through an executive order in 2025.
“It is wonderful to see this very impressive group of innovators at the White House,” Melania Trump said at the ceremony. “I’m proud that you represent the best of America. You are our future.”
The first lady said 20,000 students from every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Defense Department schools in 10 countries took part in the challenge. Every student who submitted a compliant project received a Presidential Certificate of Participation.
Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the students produced more than 2,500 projects “aiming to overcome some of their communities’ greatest challenges using AI.”
“They worked on everything: tools that help navigate the complexity of school in the online world, that improve local government efficiency and effectiveness, that synthesize real-world information for crime fighting, that guard their communities against hazardous chemicals, and they all succeeded,” Kratsios said.
Winners of the educator track included Carrie Robledo of Star Elementary in Star, North Carolina, and a team of An Nguyen, Bridget Blash and Regina Knowlton of Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Other honorees included teams from Alcoa Intermediate School in Alcoa, Tennessee; a community group team from Aldie, Virginia; NorthStar Middle School in Sammamish, Washington; Julia Landon College Preparatory School in Jacksonville, Florida; Upper Darby Senior High School in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania; and North Allegheny High School in Sewickley, Pennsylvania.
“Today is about opening doors,” Melania Trump said during the event. “When doors open, passions flow, courage blossoms and dreams are realized. AI inspires. Use this chapter of your life to sail away with your dreams.”