GovAI Kids
AI Governance Readiness Before Design™
Welcome
Ensuring Children’s Rights Before AI Begins.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 2025 report Artificial Intelligence Governance in Motion calls for preventive, child-rights-based AI governance—acting before risks are embedded and putting safeguards in place from the start.
The topic of AI governance readiness is crucial, as it highlights the necessity of proactive measures to address the unique challenges posed by AI technologies that directly affect young users.
GovAI Kids™ turns that call into action with AI Governance Readiness Before Design™, a global framework that proves organizations are prepared before any build—so AI and EdTech protect children’s rights, safety, and well-being from day one.
Every child deserves safety, dignity, and opportunity in a digital world—because the choices we make today shape the adults, families, and communities of tomorrow. The safeguards we put in place now protect children everywhere and strengthen future generations.
The Problem
Why AI governance often arrives too late for children
Evidence from practice shows three AI governance structural gaps drive late or reactive protections:
1. Children’s voices & transparency aren’t built in
Company practices are opaque; decisions aren’t explained. Children’s lived experiences rarely shape product choices. Feedback loops break between policy and day-to-day development.
2. Purpose & accountability are missing up front
Laws vary and enforcement is uneven. Guidance is often applied after design starts—when risks are already embedded. Few teams establish a clear Theory of Change (why act, outcomes for children, and how to achieve them). Committees meet, but no one owns outcomes.
3. Safety & rights controls aren’t operationalized
Principles don’t become procedures, checks, and evidence. Developmental needs are overlooked. Emerging harms—AI-Child sexual abuse material CSAM), grooming, deepfakes—demand proactive controls and testing across the AI lifecycle.
Our Response
We train and advise organizations to make organizational readiness a precondition for any child-impacting AI work. Before design starts, teams are prepared to show evidence across three stages:
1. Children’s Participation — how children’s views safely inform and shape decisions
2. Theory of Change for Organizational Readiness— define outcomes for children and assign roles/approvals before design
3. Ten Boundaries of Child-Centered AI Design™— Established by Standards and Regulations
See Our Approach — the three-stage process behind AI Governance Readiness Before Design and how we translate children’s rights into practical procedures.
Our Approach
Mission
Our mission is to prepare and advise organizations to evaluate and establish AI governance readiness before design—so every AI or EdTech system that affects children protects their rights, safety, and well-being.
Children’s AI Governance Readiness Framework
Our approach anchors to global references—the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), The Artificial Intelligence Act of the European Union (EU AI Act), UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Digital Child Rights Impact Assessment (D-CRIA) Toolkit, and relevant IEEE standards—that guide child protection and responsible AI governance.
To make pre-design readiness measurable and actionable, GovAI Kids™ uses the Children’s AI Governance Readiness Framework, developed by Abel Peña Fernández, IEEE Senior Member.
Children’s AI Governance Readiness Framework: A Four Stage process for Systems that Impact Children
Successfully preparing an organization to design AI systems that impact children requires a structured, ethical, and compliant framework. This readiness process can be effectively organized into four essential stages:
To avoid design choices based on uninformed adult assumptions, involve children and child-development experts from project inception through every iteration. Enable children’s participation in governance deliberations and structured design feedback loops using age- and development-appropriate methods, with safeguards for informed consent/assent, privacy, safety, accessibility, and inclusion across cultures, languages, and abilities.
Require that children’s input has a demonstrable, documented influence on system objectives, risk identification and assessment, and the selection, testing, and refinement of safeguards.
Prevent tokenism by ensuring representative participation and clear traceability from feedback to decisions. This grounds the system in children’s lived experiences and upholds their rights—including voice, dignity, safety, and development.
Applying a (TOC) framework enables organizations to clearly define desired outcomes for child-safe AI systems and map out the steps required to achieve them.
This approach aligns organizational policies, standards, training, and controls across the entire AI lifecycle — from initial design through deployment and ongoing monitoring — making readiness proactive and measurable.
The Ten Boundaries of Child-Centered AI Design™ translate children’s rights into practical procedures, checks, and verifiable evidence.
Anchored to internationally recognized references—the UNCRC, EU AI Act, UNICEF’s Digital Child Rights Impact Assessment (D-CRIA), UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, and relevant IEEE/ISO standards—they support compliance and effective safeguarding.
Stage 4 evaluates the organization’s structural, cultural, and technical capacity to execute and sustain child-centered AI governance—shifting from aspirational principles to embedded, auditable processes.
An organization may claim readiness to design or deploy AI that impacts children only when Participation, a rights-based Theory of Change, and the Ten Boundaries of Child-Centered AI Design™ are fully integrated and evidenced.
Stage 4 concludes with a documented Go/No-Go decision and a traceable record of controls, supporting evidence, and assigned accountability.
Children’s AI Governance Readiness Assessment
The Children's AI Governance Readiness Assessment can be used in two ways—a self-guided, plain-language assessment built on the four stages that gives designers and educators a shared, rights-anchored, evidence-based path to defensible decisions across jurisdictions. It turns high-level principles into a short set of practical checks and records, so teams see what’s ready, what’s missing, and what to do next—before any build or adoption.
The assessment evaluates alignment and required safeguards with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the EU AI Act, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Digital Child Rights Impact Assessment (D-CRIA), and relevant IEEE standards.
Corporate leaders and executives (organizations that build AI/EdTech): decide Go / Fix-First / No-Go before any build—are we ready to start designing?
Educators (schools, districts, ministries): use the companion Educational Vendor Governance Assessment—based on the same Four Stages - to verify that vendors include the required safeguards before adoption.
This is about children. The choices we make before we build shape the adults they will become, the families they will raise, and the communities we all share.
Training
AI Governance Readiness Before Design™
Ensuring children's rights before AI begins.
Training Overview
AI Governance Readiness Before Design™ is a pioneering global training program that prepares organizations and educational institutions to achieve AI governance readiness before designing or adopting AI systems that impact children. It emphasizes establishing foundational child-centric participation, organizational preparedness through a Theory of Change, and aligning with leading governance frameworks ( EU AI Act, UNICEF D-CRIA, UNCRC, IEEE standards) so ethical, safe, and lawful design decisions happen from the very beginning—before design start.
Information
- Duration: 6 hours (three 2-hour sessions)
- Format: Live online, instructor-led
- Fee: US $950 per participant
- Prerequisite: None (ideal for executives, boards, institutional leaders)
Training Goal
Enable two audiences to act before AI is built or adopted:
- Corporate leaders that build AI/EdTech): use the Children’s AI Governance Readiness Assessment to prove organizational readiness before design and issue a Go / Fix-First / No-Go decision with evidence.
- Educational institutions (schools, districts, ministries): use the Educational Vendor Governance Assessment to evaluate and select AI solutions, issuing a Select / Request More Evidence / Do Not Select decision based on verified safeguards.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this program, participants will be able to:
1. Explain the reasons AI governance must come before design for child-impacting uses.
2. Explain the challenges and barriers that must be addressed to successfully implement AI governance for child-impacting uses.
3. Develop an age-appropriate children’s participation plan using the Lundy model (Space, Voice, Audience, Influence).
4. Evaluate a Theory of Change that links organizational goals to pre-design readiness milestones and evidence.
5. Identify and match key pre-design duties from the EU AI Act, UNICEF’s D-CRIA, the UNCRC, and relevant IEEE standards to concrete evidence (policy, checklist, approval).
6. Assess internal readiness with the Children’s AI Governance Readiness Assessment and issue a Go / Fix-First / No-Go decision with a brief rationale.
7. Evaluate AI vendors with the Educational Vendor Governance Assessment and issue a Select / Request More Evidence / Do Not Select decision citing safeguards.
8. Create a take-home implementation plan to put governance into practice at your organization: assign responsible people/teams, add checkpoints to procurement/design workflows, set a regular review schedule, and list the evidence to keep.
What You’ll Receive
- Children’s AI Governance Readiness Assessment (builder path)
- Educational Vendor Governance Assessment (education path)
- Children Participation planning model checklist (Lundy-aligned)
- Theory of Change template for pre-design governance
- Certificate of completion
Who Should Attend
- Education institutions and boards — schools, universities, councils
- Corporate leaders and executives — child-facing AI solutions
- Public agencies and ministries — technology, education, child protection
- NGOs — rights-based digital innovation
Consulting
AI That Affects Children Requires Readiness Before Design™
Most organizations already have AI governance policies. But for AI that affects children, general governance isn’t enough. You need AI Governance Readiness Before Design™ — verifiable proof that participation, rights protections, safeguards, and accountability are in place before development, procurement, pilots, or deployment.
Without this readiness, policies become paper risks: preventable harm, regulatory action, loss of trust, and halted programs. We help you close that gap—so your organization can demonstrate real readiness and stand up to audits, board review, and public accountability.
We prepare organizations to prove AI Governance Readiness Before Design™, ensuring AI that affects children is safe, lawful, and defensible—aligned with UNCRC, EU AI Act, UNICEF D-CRIA, UNESCO Ethics of AI, and IEEE standards.
Stage 1 — Children’s Participation (Verification)
We verify that children and child-development experts are appropriately included by your organization—covering consent/assent, inclusion and accessibility, and traceable influence on risk assessment and safeguards.
Stage 2 — Child-Centered Theory of Change
Turn intent into governance: define outcomes, map controls, set indicators, and assign ownership across the AI lifecycle.
Stage 3 — Ten Boundaries of Child-Centered AI Design™
Translate rights into guardrails: clear procedures, checks, and evidence anchored to global standards.
Stage 4 — Organizational Readiness & Governance
Verify structures, policies, and escalation paths; issue an audit-ready Go/No-Go decision with documented evidence and accountability.
Result
Readiness that is real, documented, and auditable—so your organization can design or adopt AI affecting children with confidence, compliance, and integrity.
AI/EdTech Builders — organizations designing, integrating, or engineering child-facing AI.
System Adopters — schools, ministries, and child-serving agencies selecting or implementing AI/EdTech.
Independent Gap Analysis & Readiness Profile — Independent Readiness Check & Action Plan:
We benchmark you against child-AI standards, show the gaps, and give you a short, prioritized plan to close them.
Policy Alignment & Drafting:
We translate child-AI requirements into enforceable internal policies with defined roles, controls, and evidence requirements.
Executive & Board Advisory:
Focused briefings and working sessions on governance, child protection, and risk that produce a prioritized roadmap, clear decisions, and oversight metrics.
Deliverables include: prioritized action plans, draft policies, evidence checklists, and Go/No-Go readiness memos.
Hourly: USD$400/hour
Project-Based Packages: starting at USD$7,500
Monthly Retainers: available for ongoing advisory and lifecycle oversight
About Us/Our History
GovAI Kids™, established in 2025, advances a prevention-first model—Governance Readiness Before Design™—to protect children’s rights, safety, and well-being before AI design begins.
Its founder, Abel Peña Fernández, is an electrical engineer and IEEE Senior Member with 25+ years of leadership in digital transformation, education innovation, and governance across the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe.
Abel completed the UNITAR–UNESCO Diplomacy 4.0 program, delivered a master class on AI and digital transformation at the launch of IRCAI (a UNESCO center at the University of Ljubljana), serves on the founding editorial board of Springer Nature’s AI & Ethics, and advocates within the Safe AI for Children Alliance (SAIFCA).
He presented at IEEE URUCOM 2021 (“How to Create a Holistic Strategy to AI?”) and is a contributor and quoted expert in The Benefits of a Multidisciplinary Lens for Artificial Intelligence Systems Ethics — A Primer for Education Thought Leadership (IEEE Standards Association).
Earlier, he co-founded Code Explorers—recognized by the United Nations—pioneering hands-on technology education for children ages 4–12. He holds an Executive Program Certificate in Global Entrepreneurship from Florida State University and is certified in Dr. Robert Mager’s Criterion-Referenced Instruction (CRI) performance-based instructional design methodology.
His standards work includes IEEE P3462™ (Safety-by-Design in Generative Models for Child Safety), IEEE P7003™ (Algorithmic Bias Considerations), and IEEE P2863™ (Organizational Governance of AI), helping organizations integrate child safety, reduce bias, and establish robust governance practices.
These experiences revealed a critical gap: AI governance too often starts after risks to children are already embedded in design. Around the same time, Abel learned he would soon become a grandfather—turning professional insight into a lifelong mission. He founded GovAI Kids to move governance upstream and ensure organizations are ready to protect children’s rights before systems are built.
Founder’s Philosophy
I believe in the dignity and equal worth of every child and adolescent, in every culture and community. Technology must protect their rights, identity, and well-being—not put them at risk. This is why I stand for Governance Readiness Before Design™: preparing organizations to act with transparency, responsibility, and care before any AI system is built. My vision is a digital world that unites rather than divides—and that safeguards the future by honoring today’s young people.