VTC Revolutionizes Hong Kong Education: Teachers Build 220+ AI Virtual Tutors Empowering 18,000 Students with 24/7 Learning

Hong Kong’s future will be shaped by how boldly its education sector adapts to the age of AI. As industries transform at breakneck speed, the pressure on students to build confidence, agility and digital fluency has never been greater. While traditional instruction continues to provide the foundation for quality teaching and learning, the rapid pace of change today calls for more flexible and technology‑enabled approaches that extend learning beyond fixed schedules and physical boundaries.

Mr. WONG Chun Yin, Cyrus / Senior Lecturer of Hong Kong Institute of Information Technology

For the Vocational Training Council (VTC), Hong Kong’s largest vocational and professional education and training provider that equips post-secondary students with industry-relevant skills, the question was not whether AI would enter education, but how to integrate it responsibly, sustainably, and with trust. Instead of treating AI as a trend, the institution embraced a cultural shift—one that empowers teachers, supports students, and strengthens Hong Kong’s AI talent pipeline. Through a forward-looking strategy anchored in technology, pedagogy, and trust, VTC is proving that AI can make learning more human, not less.

Teachers Lead the Change: Building an AI Virtual Tutor in a no-code environment
VTC’s delegation‑first model marks an important shift: teachers are not merely adopting AI, they are shaping it through dedicated training that equips them to lead AI adoption. Teachers across seven disciplines—Health and Life Sciences, Business, Childcare, Elderly and Community Services, Design, Engineering, Hospitality, Information Technology—have the capability to build and refine their own Virtual Tutors––AI‑powered assistants trained on course materials to answer student questions, guide learning, and provide support beyond class hours, created in minutes using Microsoft Copilot Studio’s secure, no-code environment.

For teachers, the impact is immediate. Virtual Tutors serve as an always-available support tool, providing out-of-class support and offering students consistent assistance with course materials.  This gives teachers more time to focus on curriculum design, personalized guidance, and meaningful student interaction. In addition, the Virtual Tutors provide learning analytics and actionable insights. By tracking student engagement, participation patterns, performance, and learning progress, teachers gain real-time visibility into how students are learning across both individual and class-wide learning gaps, allowing them to refine their approach with greater precision.

“The Virtual Tutor lets me focus on teaching and providing the deeper guidance that students need. It handles out-of-class questions for me, and students get 24/7 support and come to class more confidently and ready to participate.” — Mr. WONG Chun Yin, Cyrus / Senior Lecturer of Hong Kong Institute of Information Technology .

AI Workshop

Students Gain Confidence Through 24/7, Pressure-free Support

For students, the Virtual Tutor is a trusted and constant companion—multilingual, always available, and judgement-free with structured learning elements. They can ask questions anytime, even late at night, without worrying about embarrassment or disrupting class. Beyond answering questions, the Virtual Tutor also supports interactive communication and structured reinforcement, helping them build stronger memory retention and deeper understanding of key concepts. This shift has broadened participation and unlocked new layers of self-directed learning across VTC.

As a student shared: “I can ask questions anytime without feeling embarrassed. It helps me understand concepts faster, points me to the right materials instantly and makes me feel more ready for class.”

Fast to Build, Easy to Spread: 220+ Modules and Growing

Crucially, adoption has reached a significant scale. Today, Virtual Tutors are embedded across more than 220 modules, supporting an estimated 18,000 students in seven VTC disciplines. Most teachers created their first Virtual Tutor within two hours. This marks more than operational efficiency—it is a cultural transformation, where teachers lead AI adoption and reimagine how learning happens.

Built on Trust: Governance, Security, and Transparent Rollout
Behind VTC’s momentum is the foundation of responsible AI governance.  Through a transparent, phased rollout, VTC provides clear guidance, hands‑on training, and teacher‑led experimentation that create space for teachers to build confidence with AI on their own terms. Regular communication and feedback sessions help surface doubts early, reduce skepticism, and ensure that adoption grows from understanding rather than obligation.

With Microsoft’s enterprise-grade safeguards, all data in Virtual Tutors remains protected and is never used to train external tools, providing confident assurance for teachers and students.

To maintain trust at scale, VTC is launching an AI InAction Website, which is a centralized AI resource hub, to provide self-paced learning materials, best practices, and direct support channels for teachers. This governance framework ensures that AI strengthens teaching practice and supports more effective learning, instead of complicating it.

Dr. John Hui, VTC Chief Digital Officer cum Principal of HKIIT

Looking Ahead: The Path to an AI-Native Campus

VTC’s ambition extends beyond transforming classrooms. By the mid of 2026, the institution aims to equip all administrative staff with practical AI prompting skills—from drafting minutes to summarizing documents and managing daily workflows—making AI a natural part of how the entire campus operates. Many administrative staff who have joined AI training report significant benefits, especially in applying prompting techniques that embed AI into daily work and visibly boost efficiency. Across both teaching and administrative operations, VTC is turning AI into a practical tool for effectiveness.

“We will make AI a natural part of VTC—from teachers to administrative staff; and our mission is to empower education sectors and enterprises with AI literacy through the VTC training program. When teachers and staff lead the design and use of AI, we unlock a more open, efficient, and empowering way of learning and working.” — Dr. John Hui, VTC Chief Digital Officer cum Principal of HKIIT

With this vision, VTC is embedding AI across all academic and administrative functions, strengthening its capacity for future‑ready, industry‑aligned education and training. This is how VTC is shaping not only its own campuses, but also the future talent pipeline for Hong Kong.

NEW YORK (AP) — Allbirds, the eco-friendly shoe brand that found its way onto the feet of tech CEOs and movie stars before falling on hard times, is pivoting to artificial intelligence.

On Wednesday the San Francisco-based company said it had signed a definitive agreement with an unnamed institutional investor for $50 million in financing to shift its business to AI infrastructure. It will also have a new name: NewBird AI. It plans to use the proceeds to purchase graphics processing units, known as GPUs. The transaction is expected to close during the second quarter of this year.

“The rise of AI development and adoption has created unprecedented structural demand for specialized, high-performance compute that the market is struggling to meet,” the company said in the release. “NewBird AI is being built to help close that gap.”

The drastic change of direction has some industry watchers scratching their heads.

“On the surface, it’s a strange pivot,” said AI infrastructure expert Bill Kleyman. “I’ve been in this industry a while, and a company like Allbirds moving from shoes into AI infrastructure is not a very natural adjacency.”

It’s unclear how Allbirds will reinvent itself as a “GPU-as-a-service” business that rents out computing power to AI companies. That means selling access to a huge number of graphics processors, or other specialized AI computer chips designed by companies like Nvidia or AMD, that operate in big data centers typically run by cloud computing giants like Amazon or Oracle.

The business of running physical AI infrastructure “requires access to GPUs in a constrained market, long-term power agreements, advanced cooling strategies, and a credible operating model,” said Kleyman, CEO and co-founder of Apolo.

The announcement comes more than two weeks after Allbirds sold its intellectual property and certain other assets and liabilities to American Exchange Group, a leader in accessories design, licensing and manufacturing, for $39 million. The company owns such retail brands as Aerosoles, White Mountain, Jonathan Adler and Ed Hardy.

That's a dramatic fall from the Allbirds' peak in valuation at $4 billion in late 2021. The company had said that it would not be issuing its quarterly earnings report that was set for March 31.

The latest development marks a dramatic departure from when the company was founded in 2015 by former professional soccer player Tim Brown and renewable resources expert Joey Zwillinger. Its mission: to create footwear from natural material, not synthetics. A year later, Allbirds launched its iconic wool runner shoe. But the company overexpanded, like many dot.com brands that opened physical stores. And many consumers lost interest.

In February, the brand shuttered most of its remaining stores to focus on e-commerce, partnerships with stores and international distributorship. It still operates two outlet stores in the U.S. and two full-price stores in London.

Shares of Allbirds soared more than 600% on Wednesday’s news and were hovering nearly $18 in late afternoon trading. A few days ago, the stock was trading at $3. It once traded at $520 per share.

Kleyman said the stock market surge looks “more like initial excitement and speculative momentum tied to anything AI rather than validation of execution.”

Kleyman also noted that $50 million is not a lot to enter into an infrastructure-heavy market and added that it seems everybody wants to be an AI company.

“Some of those shifts are real and strategic,” he said. “Others feel more reactive. In this case, I think it’s fair to say it can come across as a bit desperate. The underlying business struggled, and AI presents a compelling narrative reset.”

The attempt at a pivot shows that the demand for AI computing power is real, “but so is the hype,” said Jim Piazza, who worked on computing infrastructure at social media giant Meta and now is the chief AI officer at IT services firm Ensono.

Piazza said building a real AI infrastructure business “takes deep capital, technical expertise and disciplined execution,” something that is already “crazy hard for tech-savvy companies” and will be “an impossible challenge” for someone outside of it.

——

AP Technology reporter Matt O'Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

FILE - In this July 21, 2018, file photo Allbirds co-founder Tim Brown speaks at OZY Fest in Central Park in New York. Online shoe brand Allbirds plans to more than double its store count next year, hoping to reach shoppers who want to touch and try on their wool shoes. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)