Veracruz student Valeria Palacios wins the World Education Medal

Valeria Palacios Cruz, a 19-year-old pupil from Veracruz, has been selected arsenic the victor of a 2025 World Education Medal.

She has been honored successful the pupil class for utilizing artificial intelligence to code biology and societal challenges successful her community.

Palacios said the medal “reflects my content that AI should beryllium applied wherever it tin make a existent quality for radical and the planet.” (Valeria Palacios/Facebook)

The planetary award, presented by exertion elephantine HP and announced Tuesday successful London, honors lone 3 radical each twelvemonth — 1 planetary leader, 1 pedagogue and 1 pupil — for utilizing exertion to execute societal interaction and beforehand education.

Palacios, a pupil astatine Ceulver/TecNM University successful Veracruz, is the archetypal Mexican to triumph successful immoderate category. The ceremonial ceremonial volition beryllium held adjacent Tuesday astatine the Education Leaders Forum successful London.

Palacios develops projects that merge AI, robotics and drones to lick section biology problems.

Her initiatives see Clean Water Drone, which removes floating waste; Drones for Reforestation, which plants seeds successful damaged areas; and Project Manta Ray, a rescue drone utilized successful exigency response.

She besides created CONIA, a work robot designed to assistance older adults unrecorded independently by recognizing medications, speechmaking printed materials and detecting aesculapian emergencies.

“This [award] reflects my content that AI should beryllium applied wherever it tin make a existent quality for radical and the planet,” Palacios said. “Thank you, HP, for recognizing the imaginable of young innovators successful utilizing AI for a affirmative societal and biology impact.”

President Claudia Sheinbaum congratulated Palacios astatine 1 of her greeting property conferences this week, adding that she plans to conscionable her soon.

HP Global Director of Education Business and Strategy Mayank Dhingra said Palacios’ work “highlights however leveraging the latest technologies tin pave the mode for a brighter aboriginal successful education, offering anticipation and advancement to society.”

The different winners were Rebecca Winthrop, manager of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education successful Washington, D.C., successful the leaders category, and Vineeta Garg, caput of IT astatine SRDAV Public School successful New Delhi, India, successful the educators category. Approximately 130 countries participated successful the competition.

Palacios’ grant is the  latest successful a drawstring of planetary honors for Mexicans successful the satellite of education.

In August, three Chihuahua teens won archetypal spot astatine 2025 World Robot Contest successful China; successful September, Mexican pupil Alejandro Aguilar won the 2025 James Dyson National Award for creating an app that uses AI to observe retinal diseases successful nether 30 seconds; and successful December, Nelsy Saray Valenzuela Flores of Sinaloa was nominated for the GEMS Global Teacher Prize, 1 of the world’s astir prestigious acquisition awards.

In addition, high schoolhouse students from Veracruz won the Zayed Prize for their marine conservation project, and an simple schoolhouse successful Mexico City became the archetypal Mexican instauration to triumph the World’s Best School Prize for Community Collaboration, an planetary grant from London-based T4 Education.

With reports from Aristegui Noticias and Diario de Xalapa