Valeria Palacios Cruz, a 19-year-old student from Veracruz, has been selected as the winner of a 2025 World Education Medal.
She has been honored in the student category for using artificial intelligence to address environmental and social challenges in her community.
The international award, presented by technology giant HP and announced Tuesday in London, honors only three people each year — one global leader, one educator and one student — for using technology to achieve social impact and advance education.
Palacios, a student at Ceulver/TecNM University in Veracruz, is the first Mexican to win in any category. The formal ceremony will be held next Tuesday at the Education Leaders Forum in London.
Palacios develops projects that merge AI, robotics and drones to solve local environmental problems.
Her initiatives include Clean Water Drone, which removes floating waste; Drones for Reforestation, which plants seeds in damaged areas; and Project Manta Ray, a rescue drone used in emergency response.
She also created CONIA, a service robot designed to help older adults live independently by recognizing medications, reading printed materials and detecting medical emergencies.
“This [award] reflects my belief that AI should be applied where it can create a real difference for people and the planet,” Palacios said. “Thank you, HP, for recognizing the potential of young innovators in using AI for a positive social and environmental impact.”
President Claudia Sheinbaum congratulated Palacios at one of her morning press conferences this week, adding that she plans to meet her soon.
HP Global Director of Education Business and Strategy Mayank Dhingra said Palacios’ work “highlights how leveraging the latest technologies can pave the way for a brighter future in education, offering hope and progress to society.”
The other winners were Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education in Washington, D.C., in the leaders category, and Vineeta Garg, head of IT at SRDAV Public School in New Delhi, India, in the educators category. Approximately 130 countries participated in the competition.
Palacios’ award is the latest in a string of global honors for Mexicans in the world of education.
In August, three Chihuahua teens won first place at 2025 World Robot Contest in China; in September, Mexican student Alejandro Aguilar won the 2025 James Dyson National Award for creating an app that uses AI to detect retinal diseases in under 30 seconds; and in December, Nelsy Saray Valenzuela Flores of Sinaloa was nominated for the GEMS Global Teacher Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious education awards.
In addition, high school students from Veracruz won the Zayed Prize for their marine conservation project, and an elementary school in Mexico City became the first Mexican institution to win the World’s Best School Prize for Community Collaboration, an international award from London-based T4 Education.
With reports from Aristegui Noticias and Diario de Xalapa
