MentorMind receives double international recognition from GESS Awards and QS Reimagine Education
MentorMind Team
MentorMind has received two major international recognitions for its work in responsible AI for education, being named a finalist in the 2026 GESS Education Awards and shortlisted for the 2026 QS Reimagine Education Awards.
The recognitions come as MentorMind continues to expand its work with schools in the UK and internationally, developing teacher-in-the-loop AI designed to reduce repetitive workload, strengthen assessment and provide students with more timely, personalised support.
For the QS Reimagine Education Awards, MentorMind: Trusted AI Assessment has been shortlisted in the Learning Assessment category. This year’s awards received 2,226 submissions, with MentorMind progressing through four rounds of rigorous international evaluation and placing within the top 25% of projects worldwide.
The QS Reimagine Education Conference and Awards will take place in London from 6–8 December 2026, bringing together educators, universities, innovators, investors and education leaders from around the world.
MentorMind has also been named one of 10 finalists in the Rising Star – Start Up Company of the Year category at the 2026 GESS Education Awards, with the winners due to be announced at the GESS Awards Gala Dinner in Dubai on 11 November 2026.
The full GESS Awards 2026 finalist shortlist can be viewed here:
https://www.gessdubai.com/2026-awards-finalists/
Why this matters
These recognitions are particularly meaningful because they reflect two important parts of MentorMind’s mission: improving the everyday experience of teachers and learners, while also contributing to the wider development of responsible and effective AI in education.
At MentorMind, we believe the most important question is not simply whether schools will use AI.
It is how AI can be integrated into education while preserving teacher judgement, learner agency, trust and educational quality.
That principle has shaped the platform from the beginning.
MentorMind’s teacher-in-the-loop approach allows AI to support tasks such as lesson and resource creation, exam-aligned assessment, first-pass marking, learner analysis and intervention planning, while ensuring that teachers remain responsible for the decisions that matter.
Rather than treating AI as a replacement for professional expertise, MentorMind is designed to help educators spend less time on repetitive processes and more time on teaching, feedback and meaningful interaction with students.
Building with schools and teachers
The recognition also comes at an important stage in MentorMind’s development.
The platform is currently being tested and refined through school pilots across different educational contexts, with teachers actively shaping the product through their feedback.
Those conversations are helping MentorMind understand not only where AI can save time, but where it needs greater context, stronger safeguards or more human oversight.
Teacher feedback has already informed improvements across areas including mock-paper generation, lesson planning, resource creation, marking support and learner analytics.
This process of building alongside educators remains central to how MentorMind approaches innovation.
Early pilot data has also shown promising indications around both teacher time saving and student progress, although MentorMind continues to focus on gathering stronger evidence across larger cohorts, subjects and school contexts.
Recognition for trusted AI assessment
The QS recognition is particularly significant for MentorMind’s work in assessment.
Assessment sits at the centre of the teaching and learning cycle: helping teachers understand what students know, identify misconceptions and decide what should happen next.
However, creating assessments, marking them and translating results into useful intervention can also be highly time-consuming.
MentorMind: Trusted AI Assessment is designed to connect these stages more effectively while maintaining teacher oversight.
The aim is not simply to automate marking, but to create a more connected cycle of:
plan → teach → assess → mark → analyse → intervene → adapt
with AI supporting educators throughout rather than making decisions independently of them.
Looking ahead
MentorMind has been invited to express interest in presenting as part of the QS Reimagine Education Innovation Showcase in London, giving selected shortlisted projects the opportunity to present their work to an international audience of educators, institutions, investors and industry partners.
The GESS Awards process will also continue through to the awards ceremony in Dubai this November.
If you’re planning to attend either event, we’d love to see you there and celebrate together.
Join us at the GESS Awards 2026:
https://register.visitcloud.com/survey/29zj2ioemqkkb
Join us at QS Reimagine Education 2026:
We are grateful to both GESS Education and QS Reimagine Education for recognising the work being undertaken by the MentorMind team, and to the schools, teachers, students, advisers and partners who continue to test, challenge and improve what we are building.
Our mission remains unchanged:
to build trustworthy AI that strengthens teachers rather than sidelines them, reduces unnecessary workload and helps every learner receive more timely and personalised support.
And we are still only getting started.