About Us

Our story began in November 2024, in Washington, D.C., where Francesca Mani, Dorota Mani, Nicolas Gertler, and other passionate advocates at Encode came together to host an educational summit urging schools across the U.S. to update their policies to include AI in HIB and codes of conduct. The summit featured powerful speakers, including Senators Cruz, Klobuchar, and Durbin, along with representatives from Snapchat, RAINN, and NCMEC.

Francesca, named one of TIME's most influential people in AI on TIME 100 AI 2024, became an advocate for responsible AI usage after being targeted by nonconsensual digital forgery along with other girls at her high school. Her mom, an educator and entrepreneur, together with Francesca, refused to accept the school's "let's hope this blows over" approach and took action instead.

Enter Nicolas, the Yale Student AI Ambassador and Founder & CEO of Mylon, who joined forces with Francesca and Dorota to organize a student summit at Yale to educate students on ethical AI and explore AI's potential to support student innovation.

Recently, Dorota and Francesca collaborated with First Lady Melania Trump to spread awareness about digital safety, leading the historic TakeItDown Act, which was passed in Congress and signed into law by President Trump on May 19, 2025, as well as pioneering the New Jersey Assembly Bill 3540, marking a crucial step forward in protecting young people from AI-enabled digital harm.

Beyond advancing legislation, LearnSphere has engaged with the world's leading technology companies to support student innovators in leveraging AI to express their creativity and democratize access to high-quality media literacy information.

Francesca remains inspired by a comment made by Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, in a conversation during the TIME 100 AI dinner in Los Angeles: "Always remember to follow your dreams." For Francesca and LearnSphere, this means catalyzing AI policy while promoting responsible innovation amongst youth.