During the 2026 Edinburgh Science Festival, APRIL was thrilled to host three unique outreach events at the National Museum of Scotland: Future Voices: The AI Ethics Podcast, (AI) Life Begins at 50, and One Day. One Play. One Prompt.
The first event welcomed participants aged 12–15 to create and record their very own podcasts. It was amazing to hear such a wide range of perspectives on AI from this age group exploring topics like AI in sport, impacts on cognitive development, banning AI for under 16's, and much more!
"The podcast session with young minds was fabulous, along with the contribution of AI. It showed the expanding horizons of creativity and productivity when a smart generation works with AI-powered tools." ~ Semih Vazgecen
From this event, three brilliant podcasts were produced: AI on Trial, Offside Intelligence, and Inside Artificial Intelligence. These podcasts will be coming soon to our Spotify, so stay tuned!
Based on APRIL's successful outreach collaboration with ACE IT Scotland, we ran (AI) Life Begins at 50, which brought together 30 AI-curious participants aged 50+ for a series of fun, hands-on activities designed to build confidence and skills in AI.
"Taking part in the ‘AI Over 50’ workshop was such a rewarding experience. Helping people discover how to use AI in their daily lives was truly inspiring, and seeing their excitement and appreciation at the end made it all worthwhile." ~ Eleni Tselepi
The final APRIL event of the Edinburgh Science Festival 2026 was: One Day. One Play. One Prompt. Participants aged 11–15 took on the incredible challenge of creating an entire play in just one day with the help of AI. From music and dance, to storytelling, narration, and even adorable costumes, this play had it all!
"It was so much fun seeing the kids take the lead—their plot ideas were genuinely hilarious and so unexpected. I also loved what they did with the costumes; it was just really cool to see them running wild with their own imagination." ~ Shu Gu
Their story followed Dolly the Sheep (resident of the National Museum of Scotland) on a mission to stop people from eating haggis... a wonderfully imaginative and uniquely Scottish twist that brought plenty of humour and creativity to the stage.
Listen to one of the play's songs here:
The above song was created by Dr. Ben Rowlinson and Dr. Zarak Bhat using ChatGPT to write the lyrics and Suno to generate the song, and was inspired by the prompts from the event's participants.
The AI Ethics Podcast and (AI) Life Begins at 50 were led by Molly Smith, APRIL’s Outreach and Impact Officer, and One Day. One Play. One Prompt. was led by Anastasia Eleftheriou, APRIL’s Hub Manager. Our talented PhD students and researchers also contributed their time and effort to these outreach events, and we would like to thank everyone involved for making them so fun and engaging!
