Last October 8, we celebrated the first edition of Founderz Lecture Zero at the Microsoft Ibérica headquarters in Madrid, the inaugural event of the Founderz academic year. This gathering officially opened our 2024-2025 academic year and brought together more than 250 people, including students, faculty, and professionals connected to the school.
Lecture Zero was created as a landmark event on our academic calendar. Its purpose is to offer a space to connect and discuss the challenges posed by artificial intelligence, present updates on our training programs, and share reflections on the future of education amid ongoing technological change.
The first edition featured Sonia Marzo, National Skills Director for Artificial Intelligence at Microsoft, along with talks from Carlos Riquelme, Principal Researcher at Microsoft AI, and Pau Garcia-Milà, co-CEO and co-founder of Founderz. Together, they focused the discussion on the current challenges of AI and the need for training that promotes a responsible, conscious use of this technology.
Strengthening our educational model with new academic and technological updates
At Founderz, we work to make education in innovation and new technology accessible, practical, and suited to today’s environment.
With Lecture Zero, we take another step in that direction: we want every new academic year to be an opportunity to share where we’re headed as a school and to listen to the people who make up our community.
During the event, Pau Garcia-Milà, co-founder and co-CEO of Founderz, presented the year’s main updates, including the new 2026 edition of the Master’s in AI and Innovation, which evolves with a more practical, human-centered approach, and the new Master’s in AI Applied to Procurement and Supply Chain, the first of its kind in Spanish.
We also announced the latest updates to our learning platform, which now includes the Founderz Fellows, our AI-powered mentors, with new voice and video call features designed to support students throughout their learning journey and personalize their experience.
The Microsoft and Founderz partnership at Lecture Zero
The event opened with remarks from Sonia Marzo, National Skills Director for Artificial Intelligence at Microsoft, who welcomed all attendees and highlighted the significance of the moment. She noted that we are in the middle of a fundamental shift: “We are in the artificial intelligence economy, and for Microsoft, training in this area is a priority”. In that context, she praised the collaboration with Founderz as a way to democratize access to knowledge: “Having partners like Founderz is essential to bringing AI to more people”.
Next, Carlos Riquelme, Principal Researcher at Microsoft AI, gave a talk focused on the most pressing challenges facing artificial intelligence. He examined the limits of data, algorithms, and computing power, and raised questions that will shape the technology’s evolution in the coming years: “Do we have enough human-created data? How far can models trained on artificially generated data actually go?”. As he put it during the event: “The big question is whether artificial intelligence will remain limited to interpolating existing knowledge, or whether it will be able to extrapolate and create something truly new”.
A community that learns together
In his remarks, Pau Garcia-Milà addressed a question central to Founderz: how artificial intelligence can help us learn better. He also spoke about one of the biggest challenges of online education, isolation, and explained how at Founderz we foster learning built on collaboration, participation, and a sense of community.
During his talk, he shared the story of Ramón, a 91-year-old student who embodies everything we want to build: a place where age, experience, or profession are never barriers to learning.
He also presented our Responsible AI approach, which promotes an ethical, mindful use of technology. This commitment is reflected in projects like the ERIA Chair (Employability and Responsibility in AI Use), developed together with Microsoft, aimed at improving employability and promoting training in responsible artificial intelligence.
“The real revolution isn’t artificial intelligence. It’s how AI is transforming the way we learn.”
Lecture Zero, a new tradition marking a new academic cycle
Beyond marking the start of the academic year, this event reflects how we understand education: as a continuous, collaborative process connected to the challenges of today. Each edition will serve to review what we’ve learned, anticipate trends, and reinforce Founderz’s commitment to practical, accessible training focused on professional impact.
With Lecture Zero, we’re building a space where education, artificial intelligence, and technological innovation are explored through experience and analysis. Our goal is for this event to become a reference point within the digital education ecosystem, one that connects people and projects working to build the future of education in the age of AI.
