Last week, the AI for good education ecosystem lost one of the good guys: Wyman Khuu passed away unexpectedly. He was 40 years old.
Wyman was Head of Learning Engineering at Playlab, a company at the forefront of helping schools navigate both the opportunities and challenges of AI adoption.
I first met him in 2024, when he and Playlab’s co-founder Yusuf Ahmad changed my mind about how to introduce AI adoption to groups at scale via communities of practice and facilitated learning environments.
At the time, I was working with Decoded Futures, a Tech:NYC project that helps nonprofits level up on AI through a cohort-based learning program. As a fellow portfolio project of the Robin Hood Learning + Technology Fund, Decoded Futures teamed up with Playlab to run a 30-person demo day for educators, hosted at Sesame Workshop.
It was the first time I saw how they could take a group of people who had never coded before and teach them how to build (and demo!) an app in a single afternoon. That afternoon changed the way I thought about teaching AI, and its influence is still visible in my own work today.
What Wyman understood before many others was that AI adoption wasn't primarily a technology problem. It was a teaching problem. That’s why he treated every room with as much care and compassion as his own classroom.
A few months after the Sesame Workshop event, I helped a local NYC high school consider opportunities for AI inclusion for an extra-curricular entrepreneurship initiative. While I’d run a lot of AI trainings by that point, my work with teachers in particular was limited, and I emailed Wyman for help.
Without missing a beat, he acknowledged that since the school was so nearby, he’d love to join for the session. Wyman came, got every teacher in the room onboarded with a free account, and patiently answered their questions, concerns, and fears about AI as he shared his own story in moving from a teacher to developing his own set of best practices in rolling out AI in a safe, practiced way.
“I’m not here to pitch you,” he told the room of world-wary educators who had been sold the story of technological transformation in the classroom many times before. “But AI is an ‘arrival’ technology, which means it’s here, even if you aren’t seeking it out. I’m here to collaborate and share what we can do together.”
Wyman knew that skeptical rooms aren't won over with scare tactics and hype. They're won through trust, patience, and the feeling that everyone is learning together. That's why, whenever I connected him with a teacher or school, he made time for the conversation.
Wyman was the kind of person who has always worked even little rooms in big ways. And the outpouring of grief from former students, teachers, colleagues, and friends is a real testament to that.
When I first saw the email from Playlab with the subject line, “Honoring Wyman Khuu,” I opened it immediately, assuming it was an announcement of a laudable education award or prize he had won. That's how much I'd come to associate his work with excellence.
As AI continues to reshape our educational systems and entire way of life, we need more people like him. In a time where leadership is fracturing in corporate and political spheres, where the future is more questionable than ever, and there are a lot of things to be afraid about in our future, it’s rare to find the kind of high-integrity person who will sit, shoulder-to-shoulder with you, and help you learn something new.
Whether or not you knew Wyman, if you’d like to carry on some of his best qualities in your own work (whatever that may be), here are three things I saw him do again and again.
He showed up when he was invited to give back.
He saved space for people who carried different perspectives to the conversation.
He never made anyone feel stupid for not knowing something.
We lost one of the good guys this week. Here’s to hoping his example inspires a few more.
