Backstory
Every tool starts with a question.
What About? emerged from two complementary experiences — one in a university, one in a school classroom. Both kept running into the same missing question: everyone building with AI is supported on what they can build, almost no one on what they should ask.
At the University of Bern
In my professional work I advise researchers, students and innovators developing AI-enabled solutions. Teams receive extensive support on technical feasibility, business models and scaling strategies. What they rarely receive are practical tools for reflecting on the broader societal implications of what they are making.
With Voyage Numérique
A youth-led initiative of Global Shapers Geneva Hub promoting AI and digital literacy through interactive workshops and public engagement in schools, in community settings, and at the AI for Good Global Summit. Young people are curious and eager to shape AI's future, yet most programmes teach technical skills and leave little space for ethics, governance and societal impact.
At the same time, advances in AI are making entrepreneurship more accessible than ever, enabling a new generation of builders to create products and ventures with unprecedented speed and impact. Speed is exactly what makes the questions nobody asked expensive to answer later.
How it took shape
As part of the Fellowship, I began exploring how ethical reflection could become a practical and empowering part of innovation rather than an afterthought. The result is this tool: an interactive reflection that helps AI entrepreneurs and innovators ask better questions about their ideas before they scale them into the world.
Grounded in research
The questions draw on ethical-AI literature: from the gap between stated principles and daily practice, to fairness, oversight, documentation and the real environmental cost of AI. Every question in the reflection carries the evidence behind it, visible before you answer.
Shaped by founders
The tool was co-created with builders who shared their perspectives and needs in interviews and survey. Before going live, the draft was tested with entrepreneurs building with AI. What they asked for \u00a0—practical steps of abstractions, guidance that fits their sector and stage — is what the tool now delivers.
Questions, not answers
Ethical values genuinely conflict, and forcing them into one score hides that. So there is no number at the end, only your own snapshot: where you stand, what to look at next, and where to read further.
For several audiences
Founders can run it alone in about twenty minutes. Funders and university programs use it to open conversations with the teams they back. The questions work as a shared agenda, not a checklist.
Looking ahead
The ambition now is to build on the foundations of Voyage Numérique and scale it as ASTRA, using the Global Shapers network to expand the initiative beyond Geneva. By combining AI literacy, entrepreneurship and ethical reflection, the project aims to empower young innovators across Switzerland to develop AI solutions that are not only technically successful, but socially responsible and human-centred.
What it is not
What About? holds no official authority, issues no official positions, and speaks for no institution. Its outputs are sources of inspiration and reflection, clearly labelled as such: nothing it publishes binds any institution. Where regulation appears, it is orientation, not legal advice.