Building an AI platform at fourteen.

Stanislaus joined Colearning at twelve to build a drone. The money for the parts was missing, so he went to companies and offered them chatbots. After that he built the chatbot platform himself. It is called Teydra Lab, at fourteen he is its initiator and developer, and Salzburger Nachrichten ran a portrait about him in August 2026. This is a story about a room. About a place where a teenager is allowed to work on a real project, with adults who take him seriously, on a problem he chose himself. The drone was the occasion. Everything else followed because the occasion was real, and because nobody made him smaller than he was. Colearning is one day a week, Saturdays from ten to half past four, Magazinstraße 4 in Salzburg. A single question sets the pace, and everyone answers it alone: what do I build that someone needs? The rest of the day is structure, so that this question has room.

The path, step by step

At eight: “I think I got my first drone when I was eight.” Forty euros, a hobby, no plan.
At ten and a half: The first properly good drone, a DJI Mini 2. From then on flying was more than a toy.
March 2024: Colearning starts in Salzburg. Stanislaus arrives on a Saturday at twelve and says he wants to build a drone. The parts cost money he does not have.
Soon after: He works with somebody else’s paid chatbot platform and takes it to companies: “Would you maybe give us drone parts? We will build you a chatbot.” The money runs through the Talenteraum association.
The detour: A second attempt, a service turning photos people send in into 3D models. He buries it again. His reason: “The AI was expensive and the AI was bad.” Too early.
The question: I hand him a task: “If you are doing this anyway, try to program the whole platform, simply rebuild it and better.” After that he goes all the way in.
4 June: A jump in the models changes the pace. What would have taken three to four months before is now finished in a week.
August 2026: Salzburger Nachrichten publish the portrait. Right after the interview he films a video himself, a good three minutes. First sentence: “I am fourteen now and I make software.”
September 2026: He enters the ninth school year at Freie Schule Salzburg, the first school running on Paideia.

What one Saturday gives you

Colearning is one day a week, Saturdays from ten to half past four, Magazinstraße 4 in Salzburg. A single question sets the pace, and everyone answers it alone: what do I build that someone needs? The rest of the day is structure, so that this question has room.

Two years of mentoring sit inside this story, and not as lessons, but as questions at the right time. Who needs this? What does it cost you? How will you notice it works? A mentor keeps the problem open until the young person solves it. The jump in the models then changed exactly one thing: the build time. The question of who needs this stayed the same.

People who want to develop themselves in this field and who feel that fire, the fire of what is possible in the world.

I have not only given this advice since Stanislaus. In a video series from 2017 I encourage a fourteen year old to start producing right away instead of waiting for a supposedly more enlightened later moment. In the same video I admit to myself that I did not do that at fourteen, and that I regret it a little. That is exactly the advice I give at Colearning every week today.

Project start and morning round. Everyone says what they are working on today.
Two sprints on your own project, with meditation and a workout in between.
A shared meal, because a day with people runs differently from a day with tasks.
A SOLE session on a topic the group asks for: one big question, research in small groups, a presentation at the end.
Closing round. What moved, what is stuck, what is next week.

What Teydra Lab is

Teydra Lab is software companies use to build their own AI chatbot, including handover to a human when the bot gets stuck. It is meant for smaller companies with a website, in his own words up to “probably more like 20” staff. The platform is in beta and has its first customers.

Why this belongs in the school week

A Saturday is one day. A school has five. Freie Schule Salzburg builds the same structure into the week: projects with a real audience, mentors who accompany, milestones you actually reach. Paideia is the layer that carries this for schools. The connection here is direct. Stanislaus told his school at the time about Colearning, that is how the contact with me came about, and I have been rebuilding that school ever since. What came of it is in What should school achieve today?.

The path looks ordinary as soon as you see it in steps. A real wish. An obstacle. An offer made to strangers. An attempt you end in time. A hard question. A great deal of work. Every step can be learned, and none of them requires talent. What most biographies lack is the room where those steps are allowed to happen.

On record

Salzburger Nachrichten, business section, 19 August 2026. Interview transcript of 13 August 2026. Colearning page on zukunftbilden.eu, as of September 2026.

Portrait in Salzburger Nachrichten, 19 August 2026, text and photos: Hannah Kirchgasser
Video of Stanislaus right after the interview, a good three minutes, on the Colearning page
Teydra Lab in beta with first customers, meant for companies up to around 20 staff
Colearning has existed since March 2024, Saturdays at Magazinstraße 4 in Salzburg
Stanislaus attends the ninth school year at Freie Schule Salzburg

Sources and links

This note keeps growing

2026-09-03: Deepened with a video of my own from 2017: the same advice to a different fourteen year old, plus my own admission of having done it too late myself.

2026-09-03: Deepened: timeline from the first drone to the ninth school year, how a Colearning Saturday runs, what Teydra Lab actually is, quotes from the interview, sources with article and video.

2026-09-02: Section on Freie Schule Salzburg added.

2026-08-20: Planted after the SN portrait.