AI and Education in Bolivia: The Opportunity is in Our Mindset

AI and education, where to start?

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the world at a pace that can feel overwhelming. Every day brings something new. Tools that automate tasks, generate content, build products, translate languages—or code an entire website in minutes. What once seemed like science fiction is now accessible to anyone with a smartphone.

And that’s what excites me most: for the first time, we can build what we imagine without needing huge technical teams or unattainable budgets. A teacher in Sucre or a student in El Alto can now create their own assistant, prototype a solution, or explore a subject in depth using tools that are accessible and customizable.

But it also worries me. The speed. The growing gap. The risk of falling behind as a country while others are already developing national strategies to integrate machine learning in primary education. It’s alarming that, during an election year, we’re still debating more extractivist proposals to tackle the economic crisis—and not even talking about education as the real paradigm shift we need for development. We keep insisting lithium will solve everything.

At catalytic-A, we are part of the Global South Network for AI in Education, where we exchange perspectives with seven countries from Asia and Africa. We see how much progress is being made elsewhere. Bolivia has no strategy, no roadmap. What we do have is a unique opportunity to leapfrog—to skip steps others had to go through to reach development. But to seize it, we need more than access to technology: we need a shift in mindset.

It’s not that we don’t use AI. It’s that we’re not deciding how to use it.

There is no structured conversation about AI in education in Bolivia. Sure, there’s curiosity. People use the tools. But we remain consumers of platforms built for other contexts, without a vision of our own. That’s dangerous. Because if we don’t design from within our own realities, what could be a liberating tool might instead replicate bias, inequality, and exclusion.

I’ve seen it firsthand: new startups like Llamita.AI or Suyana—founded by Bolivians who studied abroad and came back to build with tech—show that talent and commitment are here (I’ve lived this path myself, which is why I speak from experience). But these remain exceptions. As long as access to cutting-edge innovation—and especially to that mindset shift—remains a privilege for those who left the country, we won’t close the gap. We’ll deepen it.

The challenge isn’t just technical. It’s mental.

There is fear, distrust, apathy. Phrases like “AI will take our jobs” or “this isn’t for me” are all too common. And it’s not people’s fault. It’s the product of decades of an education system that penalizes mistakes, discourages curiosity, and rewards obedience.

So talking about AI in education isn’t about robots in the classroom. It’s about how we nurture open, critical, adaptive minds. It’s about rethinking what we mean by "learning," and what purpose we teach for.

AI and education, where do we begin?

We don’t have all the answers, nor do we pretend to. But there are urgent decisions we can start making now:

• Train teachers through hands-on experience, not platform imposition.

• Launch local pilot programs that encourage experimentation, failure, and iteration.

• Develop multilingual, accessible, culturally relevant content.

• Build alliances between private sector, academia, and civil society to co-create a national AI strategy with a people-first focus.

Sometimes I feel like I don’t even fully understand how to use AI. Things move so fast, it’s easy to feel left behind. But instead of freezing, I choose to learn, ask, explore. That works at a personal level. But a country needs structure, strategy, and political will.

The opportunity isn’t just in the tech. It’s in how we think about it.

AI can be a powerful tool to democratize knowledge, create new ways of learning, and close historic gaps. But only if we put people at the center. Only if we understand that innovation isn’t about adopting the newest tool—it’s about asking, with honesty: Is what we’re doing helping us grow, care, and build well-being?

Technology will keep advancing. The question is whether we want to use it to transform our education system—or just wait for someone else to decide for us.

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Bruno Ayllón

CFO and co-founder of catalytic-A

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