WASHINGTON, D.C., NOVEMBER 10, 2026 – Multilingual by Design, a collaborative philanthropic initiative, today announced three teams that will each receive $350,000 to build and test AI tools that help teachers support multilingual students. Led by DSST Public Schools, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, each team brings together an organization with deep expertise in multilingual education and a partner with AI and product-building experience. Over the coming year, they will pilot their tools with teachers in Colorado, Massachusetts and Wisconsin.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, two-thirds of U.S. public school teachers have at least one multilingual learner in their class, and one in three new kindergartners comes from a multilingual household. As busy teachers incorporate AI assistants and products into their work, they are finding that few are designed with multilingual students' needs in mind — or with input from the educators who know them best.

“Teachers are short on time and working hard to help multilingual learners keep up in math and early literacy,” said Sandra Licon, Multilingual by Design Fund Director. “These three teams are building with that reality in mind. They started with deep curiosity about what students and teachers experience day to day, and they're actually putting the needs of multilingual students first.”

Launched in March 2026 by a collaborative of six foundations and managed by Social Strategy Associates, Multilingual by Design issued an open call to nonprofits with expertise in multilingual math and literacy education and to AI builders interested in collaborating on teacher-facing tools. The call drew more than 180 applications. 

In June, 30 of those organizations gathered in Washington, D.C., for Design Days, an in-person workshop where education and technology partners heard directly from teachers about their experiences and challenges with balancing the needs of multilingual learners in their classrooms. Some teams arrived as established partnerships; others were paired during the application process. Select teams were then invited to submit proposals for additional funding. 

Each tool is designed to empower teachers and answer real classroom needs. Teachers decide how the tools are used, review what they produce and stay in charge of instruction. Teams will pilot under data-sharing agreements with their partner schools and will track results ranging from classroom discussion to student achievement.

“Every child deserves a classroom where they are understood, supported and given the opportunity to thrive,” said Angie McPhaul, Director, Youth Success at Gary Community Ventures. “The philanthropic community has an important role to play in co-creating what a human-centered AI future will look like, one built alongside teachers and students, not just for them. These three projects center the strengths that multilingual students bring to our schools and the teachers who know them best.”

Meet the Awardees

Content and Language with AI (CLAI): Integrating AI to support small-group math talk
Partners: The Responsible AI for Learning (TRAIL) Lab, Multilingual Learning Research Center (MLRC) and WIDA Consortium – all at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

CLAI gives teachers a live, at-a-glance view of small-group student discussions. Building on real-time transcription and translation, the tool recognizes when students are using key learning concepts or ideas from home life – and where they may be struggling, flagging moments that call for a response. A teacher who doesn't share a student's first language can quickly see where that student needs support. Students are in control of their own audio recordings, which are stored locally and stay under district control. CLAI will be piloted with six teachers in rural, suburban, and urban school districts in Wisconsin.

Medley Studio: Customizing instructional materials to meet multilingual students’ needs
Partners: Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and Medley Learning

Building on their partnership in the Cooney Center Sandbox, Medley Learning and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center will team up to design Medley Studio, which helps teachers adapt the grade-level materials they already use to better support multilingual learners, quickly adding research-backed, proficiency-aligned scaffolds like shorter text chunks and in-context definitions. Teachers can review and customize recommended supports, then export or print classroom-ready materials – reducing planning time while preserving rigorous, grade-level instruction. Their pilot will focus on five schools in Taunton, Massachusetts; Medley currently serves 12,000 students across 48 school systems.

Premo: Adapting high-quality instructional materials with language in mind
Partners: DSST Public Schools and Scale Up Partners

Premo uses AI to help teachers plan and adapt grade-level math lessons so multilingual learners can engage with rigorous content while building academic language. Designed to support adoption of high-quality instructional materials (HQIM), the tool aligns each lesson to established English language development frameworks and suggests ready-to-use supports and teaching strategies matched to each student's English proficiency level. DSST will pilot the tool in its network of 16 public middle and high schools in Denver and Aurora, where more than 65% of students are current or former multilingual learners.

Alongside their grants, the teams will receive coaching and go-to-market support, with the goal of building tools that can reach classrooms well beyond their pilot sites. Throughline Learning, a Providence-based nonprofit that partners with school districts on AI implementation, will provide technical assistance and lead research on the pilots, helping teams use a common set of measures to understand how their tools are working for teachers and students. Multilingual by Design will continue to share what the teams learn with educators, developers and funders across the field. Learn more at multilingualbydesign.org.

About Multilingual by Design

Multilingual by Design is a collaborative philanthropic initiative supported by the Bezos Family Foundation, Gary Community Ventures, the Gates Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the Robertson Foundation and Sobrato Philanthropies. Through grantmaking and technical assistance, the initiative brings together K-8 education nonprofits and AI builders to create tools that put multilingual students first. Learn more at multilingualbydesign.org.

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