When Dan Be Kim (HGSE ’25) transitioned from running a venture-backed prop-tech startup in Silicon Valley to enrolling at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), she brought with her a fluency in innovation — and a growing curiosity about education’s relationship to technology.
When she arrived on campus, she immediately saw an opportunity to contribute to the conversation. “There was a lot of theoretical discussion about AI around ethics, risks, and future impacts,” says Kim. “But there weren’t enough tools or training to help educators actually use AI in meaningful, grounded ways.”
So she set out to build one.
Today, Kim is the founder of PromptED, an educational consultancy incubated at the Harvard Innovation Labs and designed to scale programming focused on functional AI literacy. PromptED’s mission is to empower educators and learners — especially in upper-secondary and higher education — to use AI effectively, creatively, and confidently in their daily work.
At its core, PromptED helps educators become more co-intelligent with AI: not just knowing what it is, but understanding how to actively collaborate with AI to enhance their teaching practices.
A New Approach to AI Literacy
PromptED’s model is built around functional AI literacy: the ability to use a range of different AI tools, including popular large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, along with text-to-image and video tools like RunwayML and Midjourney. Teachers learn to leverage these tools to support critical tasks like lesson planning, content creation, and student feedback management.
That functionality is supported by evidence-based learning design. PromptED weaves in principles like low-stakes testing, scenario-based practice, and spaced repetition — all principles from the Science of Learning — to help educators build durable, transferrable skills.
And everything is grounded in togetherness. Participants don’t just absorb new concepts; they collaborate, co-create, and learn from one another.
“I believe in fostering AI skills, not simply teaching AI. We’re not creating a curriculum. We’re designing experiences where people can learn by doing,” Kim says. “And in the process, we’re dismantling a lot of fear and shame around using AI, while keeping an emphasis on human participation. That’s why we create learning environments where educators can actively engage with these tools while critically assessing their outputs.”
From Proof of Concept to National Push
PromptED’s J-Term mini-course at Harvard’s Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, which received overwhelmingly positive feedback, offered early validation of the venture’s approach.
Along with HGSE PhD candidate Blerim Jashari, Kim co-designed and co-instructed "AI Tools for Learning Design." The course, which was made public to serve a wider audience, attracted an interdisciplinary group of participants from institutions like Harvard, MIT, and the International School of Boston.
“We saw incredible demand,” says Kim. “That was the moment we knew there was a real gap — and a real opportunity to fill it.”
Building on the success of the mini-course, Kim was inspired to conceptualize PromptED, which is getting prepared for global outreach, collaborating with institutions in Europe, Northeast Asia, and the U.S.
To support ongoing learning and collaboration, the venture is also developing a community of practice, where educators can share resources, exchange feedback, and build a shared understanding of how to integrate AI meaningfully into their work. At Harvard, PromptED is applying to the Culture Lab Innovation Fund to pilot a university-wide AI literacy initiative that brings faculty, staff, and students together for hands-on learning.
Built at the i-lab, Designed to Scale
PromptED’s growth is being shaped by the i-lab’s education and social impact ecosystem. Through mentorship from advisors like Eileen Rudden and Rebekah Emanuel, Kim is mapping out a national strategy for expanding PromptED’s ability to address the implications of the digital divide on access to AI literacy. Kim is focusing particularly on reaching educators in public schools, community colleges, and under-resourced institutions. As it expands, PromptED also aims to offer programming to students.
“The i-lab has been a true accelerator,” Kim says. “From high-level strategy to legal and IP counsel, it’s given us access to the people and insights we need to scale with purpose.”
PromptED is now building a key partnership with Sparkwise, an ed tech platform built for live, group-based learning. Together, they are developing a virtual AI literacy module that allows educators to experiment with prompting in real time — no prior technical experience needed.
“Most educators don’t get a safe space to explore and tinker with AI,” Kim explains. “With Sparkwise, we’re creating an environment that’s hands-on, social, and highly applicable to classroom realities.”
Post-Grad Plans: PromptED Goes Global
Graduating from HGSE this month, Kim is now focused on scaling PromptED globally. She’s building partnerships across Korea, India, Germany, Canada, and the U.S. to expand access to practical, responsible AI literacy for educators and learners.
She’ll continue contributing to the Global Science of Education Network and UNESCO’s Global Science of Learning Alliance, advancing evidence-based EdTech grounded in the learning sciences. This summer, she returns to HGSE as an AI Fellow and joins the IMAGINE project at the Harvard Center for Digital Thriving, where she’ll support research on how Gen Z perceives and engages with AI — including through the lens of attachment theory.
In the fall, she’ll co-organize an AI-ED Summit in Seoul focused on AI-powered social entrepreneurship. Kim’s involvement in these initiatives all serves her broader goal of connecting global communities around meaningful, hands-on AI education.
