A Day at the Kurdistan Education Forum: AI, Education, and the Kurdish Language

This August, the third Kurdistan Education Forum (KEF) convened in Erbil under the theme Interactive Digital Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Education. For two days, educators, researchers, policymakers, and students gathered to explore how Kurdistan can harness artificial intelligence in ways that both modernize learning and safeguard our cultural identity.

For me, the day was deeply personal. It connected my ongoing research on Kurdish language and AI with the urgent debates unfolding about education, technology, and the future of society.

Morning Panel: Kurdish Language in the Age of AI

In the morning, I joined a panel devoted to the Kurdish language. I shared my conviction that AI must not only serve global languages but also help preserve and promote Kurdish.

My remarks centered on three themes:

• AI as a Preservation Tool AI can document, standardize, and enrich Kurdish, ensuring its dialects and idioms are not lost in translation as education systems digitize.

• A Unified Kurdish Dictionary I announced an effort to create a comprehensive Kurdish dictionary, building on research I’ve been engaged in for years. This project links directly to my broader academic work — such as my studies on terminology standardization, the Consensus Score for evaluating expert agreement, and the use of fuzzy logic frameworks to select standardized Kurdish IT terms. A unified dictionary is not only a linguistic milestone but also a foundation for training AI systems that truly understand Kurdish.

• Introducing Kurdish to the AI Era I stressed that our responsibility is not just to adopt technology but to teach technology about Kurdish. This aligns with my other research efforts in Kurdish NLP, including work on OCR, machine translation, and speech technologies. AI systems are only as good as the data they are fed, which is why research and data collection on Kurdish must be a priority.

Watch the Panel Discussion

Discussing Kurdish language preservation and AI at the Kurdistan Education Forum

The Broader Forum

The day also highlighted perspectives from colleagues such as Dr. Saman Seweyli, who emphasized Kurdistan’s proactive steps like the Our School platform, and Dr. Masoud Mohammed, who argued that AI can foster critical thinking, modernize assessment, and reshape educational infrastructure.

Together, these contributions underscored a shared understanding: AI is not just another educational tool; it requires a complete rethinking of how we teach, learn, and preserve knowledge.

Afternoon: Bringing the Message to the Public

Later, I appeared on Mori Ava (AVA Media) for a televised interview. Here, I widened the scope of my reflections:

• AI as a collaborative partner for teachers, not a replacement.
• The importance of responsible AI that respects fairness, privacy, and cultural identity.
• The role of universities in leading AI research and innovation.
• The urgency of bridging the digital divide, ensuring equitable access for all students.
• The call for a long-term Kurdish AI model that aligns technology with our cultural and educational goals.

This public conversation was a chance to connect policy and research with the everyday concerns of families, teachers, and students.

Watch the AVA Media Interview

Me on Mori Ava (AVA Media) discussing AI in education and the future of Kurdish language technology

Linking the Threads: Research and Vision

As I reflected on the day, I realized how strongly it ties into the arc of my research:

• My earlier work on Kurdish terminology standardization (through fuzzy-logic consensus and evaluation metrics like the Consensus Score) laid the groundwork for building reliable linguistic resources.
• Projects in machine translation, OCR, and speech technologies for Kurdish aim to give our language a stronger digital presence.
• The announcement of the unified Kurdish dictionary is a natural continuation of these efforts, offering a foundation for both scholarship and AI integration.

Together, these strands point toward a single vision: to bring Kurdish fully into the AI era — not as an afterthought, but as a language and culture that can thrive in digital systems, research, and education.