Empowering students to learn with AI and learn beyond AI

For many, the biggest challenge is not the solution, but coordinating people—navigating differing views and achieving alignment within tight timelines.

Jolie Quek, a Year 3 Data Science and Business Analytics student from the University of London (SIM), experienced this firsthand while leading a team to pitch AI adoption ideas for higher education.

“The hardest part was managing team dynamics—we had different views and very little time to align.”

Explaining the value, not just building the solution

For Isabel Khoo, Microsoft Customer Success Account Manager and programme mentor, mentorship bridges AI learning and real-world impact by helping students sharpen ideas, communicate value, and present solutions with confidence.

At Learn, Hack & Fun, that journey begins with inspiration from Microsoft professionals, before students move into a hands-on Copilot mini hackathon.

Even those with no prior hands-on AI experience are guided to move from observing what AI can do to building and pitching their own ideas by the end of the day.

That combination of technical learning and communication is intentional, Khoo explains.

“You can understand a product inside out, but if you can’t articulate the value to a stakeholder, it doesn’t land.” For students preparing to enter the workforce, this ability to connect an idea to business or community impact is as important as the AI skill itself.

Through mentoring, Khoo sees students improve their communication confidence, link technical work to outcomes, and adapt when plans change — skills that develop through feedback, practice, and audience awareness.

Growth becomes visible when students bring their own perspectives, drive conversations, and express opinions with more structure.

“Soft skills can’t be scored, but behavioral shifts are very readable, so you don’t need a rubric to know when a student has grown,” she says.

That same principle also made the programme approachable to students beyond technical majors.

Democratising AI for students across all majors

For students like SIM’s Jolie Quek, the programme showed that AI fluency is not only about technical knowledge.

Although she came in with coding exposure in R, Python, and SQL, one of her clearest takeaways was learning how to structure prompts and give AI tools more specific instructions.

NUS student Federick Halim sees the same shift as essential for the future workforce: students need to try AI in daily work, use it to become more efficient, and still preserve the human qualities that help them stand out.

That is why the programme is designed to be inclusive. “There are also participants from non-technical backgrounds, so a strong technical foundation is not a prerequisite,” Quek says.

For Halim, what matters most is not technical skill alone, but “the heart to serve and contribute” and the drive to grow AI adoption within the community.

Microsoft Student Ambassador programme is more than an introduction to AI. It is a platform for students to learn with AI, grow beyond AI, and experience how ideas are shaped in real workplace contexts.

Through hands-on Copilot practice, mentorship, teamwork, and peer sharing, students build not only AI fluency, but also the confidence, judgment, and communication skills to turn learning into impact for their campuses, communities, and future workplaces.