Research

Research-driven, university-backed, verifiable

HillcrownAI is built on a research base that most AI providers don't have: the ProFiZ consortium for protective-by-default AI for children and active partnerships with European universities.

Glass panels for law, child safety, analytics and impact measurement – connected to a central AI cube.

Why we publish

Children's AI is too important to build behind closed doors

We commit to publishing the methods that make our products safe - open and traceable. Partners and policymakers can verify our claims; competitors can build on the methods.

Selected publications

What we have published

Springer Nature · EC-TEL 2025

KinderGPT: Promoting Children's AI Literacy Through Conversational AI – Usability Evaluation and Practical Insights

Peer-reviewed conference paper from the European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL 2025), published in the collection „Two Decades of TEL. From Lessons Learnt to Challenges Ahead“ (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 16064), Springer Cham. The study documents the usability evaluation of KinderGPT as a tool for fostering AI literacy in children aged 6 to 12, methodologically grounded in the UNESCO AI Competency Framework for Students and the Digital Promise K-12 framework.

Authors: Dr. Rebecca Pape (Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt / Titanom Solutions GmbH, Munich) · Kateryna Zabolotna (University of Oulu / Tampere University, Finland)

Published: 02 September 2025 · pp. 218–223

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-03873-9_27

In preparation · ProFiZ

Protective-by-default AI for children – methodology and reference implementation

Peer-reviewed contribution within the ProFiZ consortium on the methodology of a protective-by-default AI architecture for children. Submission planned for 2026. HillcrownAI contributes the technical reference implementation and the parent-dashboard concept.

Status: in preparation · preprint on request

Research partners

Who we work with

ProFiZ consortium

Consortium across academia, civil society and industry, focused on protective AI for children. Pedagogical and methodological accompaniment of the KinderGPT methodology. HillcrownAI contributes the technical reference implementation and the parent-dashboard concept. More at profiz-kita.de.

University of Graz

Developmental-psychology evaluation and pedagogy review for the 4–14 age range.

Rheinische Hochschule Köln

Strategic accompaniment on AI in corporate and brand contexts (Prof. Dr. Beate M. Gleitsmann, Head of Media, Marketing & Innovation).

Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt

Academic partner via the author affiliation of the Springer paper. Contributes pedagogical and methodological grounding in the German-speaking area, complementing the Austrian anchor at the University of Graz.

University of Oulu / Tampere University

International research anchor for KinderGPT usability and children's AI literacy. Co-author of the Springer Nature conference paper on the usability evaluation of KinderGPT. Focus: AI literacy as defined by UNESCO and Digital Promise frameworks, child-AI interaction in informal learning.

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Related pages on trust & compliance

Architecture, safety and research belong together - the three pages of the trust lane each deepen one aspect.

Request the publication list

Researchers, journalists and procurement teams can request the preprint and the ProFiZ executive summary.