NewKid Days #1 : chosen moments

+ announcing NewKid Days #2 in San Francisco !

Jul 31, 2026

A lot can happen in a couple months.

I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that my family attended this premiere : my husband, my children, my parents. Some of my best friends too.

Again, a HUGE thank you to the many people who made NewKid Days #1 possible : my parents and in-laws who took care of our kids on a regular basis, my beloved kev for his unconditional support, Omar & his team who captured and edited these moments, Martin Oh - Martificial.ai for the sound track and inspiration 🤙, the VivaTech team, Anne-Sophie, Mathilde and Linda for being a joy to work with, Kevin, Laurent, Elise, Amelia, Greg, Solenne, David, Margaux, Paul, Amelie, Cedric for your warm intros and more 🫶 and Dust, well, for being my reliable assistant all along.

REPLAY TIME 🍿
starting next week, I’ll be releasing one by one the full content of these discussions below — stay tuned!

Without further ado, I am excited to finally share with you this 3-min recap of the NewKid Days, first edition!

(I know, next time I’ll arrange my hair and make up #noob)

10:00AM. We started early with our first panel : LLMs and our children. A conversation between AI builder Aymeric Roucher (ex Hugging Face, author of “Ultra-Intelligence : Jusqu’où les intelligences artificielles iront-elles ?”), and two of the most knowledgeable AI x child safety experts, Dr Mathilde Cerioli (Chief Scientist at everyone.ai) and Stéphie Herlin (cofounder of KORA), moderated by another AI x child safety expert Anne-Sophie Seret (Executive Director of everyone.ai).

We dug into what’s a Large Language Model (LLM), the stages of development of a child’s brain, and what we know about how generative AI is impacting children.

Most LLMs aren’t safe for children, inviting them to keep secrets, delivering mental health diagnosis or even giving advice to hit a friend (…) what LLMs do relatively well though, is protecting them against sexual images. — Stéphie Herlin

Meanwhile, children and teens got to learn how image recognition works, through a workshop involving drawing dozens of cats, with Linda Liukas. Others discussed with Amélia Matar the biaises and boundaries of AI in our lives.

11:30AM. The day continued with a special kind of panel, where the public was invited to participate in the conversation : What should we pass on to our children?

Philosopher & school builder Marie Robert (Philosophy Is Sexy), soft skills advocate & entrepreneur Solenne Bocquillon-le goaziou (Etre Parent au 21è siècle) and Internet culture & social media historian Laurent François (Alive in Social Media) : each of them run its own group of conversation before reuniting and sharing what had been discussed.

Meanwhile, children were invited to answer the question “where can AI help at home?” Pieces of wisdom they later shared:

AI doesn’t have a heart… so it can not really love us — Emmy
AI should do domestic chores, so that we have more time with our parents — Boo

Shoutout to Xavier Cazard and the team at La Maison de la Conversation for this format.

12:45PM. Lunch break? Not for them! Remember the call for startups we launched last May? Nine startups made it to VivaTech for this first edition of the NewKid Days, showcasing their tech-product-for-kids all day.

At noon, they came on stage to pitch their project in no more than 2 minutes - followed by a 2 minutes Q&A. The jury? Two of the most active venture capital funds in Europe: Brighteye Ventures with David Guérin and Kima Ventures with Alexis Robert, France’s largest tech media Maddyness with Paul Bonnet-Witvoet, and renowned safety experts based in Silicon Valley, everyone.ai, with Dr Mathilde Cerioli and Laurent Vernhes.

These founders all did great, that was a tough exercise! (Especially when you’re starving)

I am being told that one even got an investment following that day... just saying ;)

Dig deeper:

Jules | 3-10 | a playful learning device ✨ Sandra
Motiv | 12-16 | a voice-first AI cognitive coach ✨ Pauline & Charlotte
Tokidos | 3-8 | a screen-free educational gaming platform ✨ Ralph & Gautier
Bulle | 12+ | an innovative co-mediation app for parents & teens to reconnect ✨ Emmanuel & Julie
Greem | 3-12 | an app for parents & their kids to co-create stories ✨ Yann & Marc
Karri | 4-10 | a screen-free, data-enabled voice communication device ✨ Evelina
Nuri Tales | 3-8 | a story telling app for parents to help deal with emotions ✨ Annemieke
Drimmly | 14+ | an AI career companion to help students discover, find and get their dream job ✨ Alexis
Cantoo Scribe | 6-16+ | an AI-powered inclusive digital schoolbag that removes learning barriers for students with disabilities ✨ Minashe

2:00PM. Third and last panel was a very important topic: is French school ready for what’s ahead? or put it differently : is French school preparing our children for the world they will be living in? A conversation beautifully orchestrated by Elise Nebout, cofounder of Les Mots. Lots of sharp insights and tangible solutions from Aude Guéneau (Plume & La Réplique), Nicolas Princen (La Meilleure Ecole du Monde), Fatma Chouaieb (Hello Charly) & Pierre Amougou (Etudiants.Ambitieux) that you will soon discover in the full replay… alriiiight, let me spoil a bit:

‘AI at school’ is rather ‘AI outside of school’. 90% of high school students use AI for their homework — Aude Guéneau
(…) 15 years as pupils and no one will ever teach them how to actually learn, how to focus, how to deal with failure, how to overcome self-censorship — Pierre Amougou

Meanwhile, well, children drew their dream school, alongside Diana-Luz Houdayer-Laborde (Fragments d’impact) and Svenia Busson (Education Futures). ✨ Gold moments as they shared back with us :

Robots will replace cafeteria ladies. The money robots will earn will go to these (human) ladies, so they can rest and enjoy their time. And with robots, we can also chose what we get to eat! — Aïsha

3:30PM. Last but not least, I had such a good time interviewing MacKenzie Price, cofounder of Alpha School. She flew in from Austin, TX to share with us parents her vision for education and the future of school. It was my first interview on stage (you could tell 😅). And an eye-opening one!