Sixth-graders start working with AI robot Bella at NYT Yrityskylä

This week the first sixth-graders started work at the new AI Studio at Yrityskylä, where they teach Bella, a small AI learning companion, to recognise objects and decide how she reacts. Bella is built by IchiZero, a Finnish company spun out of Nokia Bell Labs at the end of 2025. AI Studio is present in four Yrityskylä centres in Espoo, Turku, Vaasa and Oulu.

Bella was originally developed at Nokia Bell Labs for the Bell Labs Centennial. Nokia Bell Labs is Nokia's research unit, with roots going back to 1925 and has since then garnered 10 Nobel Prizes and 5 Turing Awards.

In 2024, a small group of researchers, designers, engineers, educators and parents at Bell Labs Cambridge started building playful ways for children to understand how AI works: something tangible, safe and joyful, made for real classrooms. The aim was to make AI literacy accessible to children through hands-on learning that requires no prior coding skills and helps them understand, explore and create with AI.

At the AI Studio in the Yrityskylä program, children train Bella with their own examples, test her, and watch her follow their instructions and make mistakes. No prior coding skills are needed. Along the way, they learn how AI learns from data, why it sometimes gets things wrong, and that people decide what it does. Sessions are guided by Yrityskylä facilitators.

"Children are surrounded by AI, from the videos recommended to them to the chatbots they ask about how the world works. Few understand what's happening underneath: how a machine learns from examples, why it gets things wrong, and who decides what it does. We want to be part of shaping a future where every child, everywhere, can understand, question, and shape AI; confidently, creatively, and responsibly." says Ira Gylling, CEO and co-founder of IchiZero.

Bella is more than a robot. She combines the physical robot with a browser-based app and ready-made learning content, organised into short activities called flashcards. Educators can also create their own flashcards.

The programme is a collaboration between Nokia, Elisa and Foundation PS, delivered with NYT's Yrityskylä. Foundation PS is a non-profit initiative established by Silo AI co-founder Peter Sarlin to strengthen Finland’s and Europe’s artificial intelligence (AI) research ecosystem, talent recruitment, and global competitiveness. The collaboration was announced in August 2026, and the first pupils started using Bella this week.

"At Yrityskylä, sixth-graders find out what it is like to work and take part in society, and today AI is part of both. At the AI Studio, pupils get to teach AI themselves and see that how it behaves depends on the choices people make. We want every pupil to leave Yrityskylä knowing that AI is made and steered by people." says Johanna Vesikallio, CEO Nuorten yrittäjyys ja talous NYT.

IchiZero aims to grow into an international edtech company that makes AI literacy accessible to every child. The company is now looking for partners among educational institutions and private learning providers globally.