Toi Ohomai kaimahi showcase AI oral assessment at WorldSkills Shanghai

Two Toi Ohomai kaimahi (staff) have returned from Shanghai after sharing a new approach to assessment at the WorldSkills Conference 2026, the world's largest vocational skills event.

Education Technology Adviser Jonathan Adams and Dr Hongyang Bi (Bill) spent two days sharing an AI-supported oral assessment tool that lets ākonga talk through what they know with evidence highlighted for the tutor.

AkoVoice was one of 25 projects selected for the conference's Skills Colab event from more than 130 entries across 35 countries. The pair met skills organisations from around the world and had a front-row view of the competition itself, with over 15,000 competitors and delegates, and several hundred thousand public visitors. Two New Zealand apprentices were among the competitors. 

Bill says attending the event was valuable to build Toi Ohomai’s profile with prospective students in China who consider innovation and research an important component of their studies. He is now looking at oral assessments in our Tourism and Hospitality programmes.

The project was initiated with automotive lead Joe Nathan and tutor Joseph Ottesen, and the Mokoia auto engineering tutors piloting the tool with their ākonga.

That work was recognised with a 2026 Agentic Innovation Award at the AI in Higher Education hosted by the University of Otago in early September.  

“Oral assessment is not new, but we can show how to do it consistently with a rubric and the human tutor still making the final decision,” Jonathan says.  

“We’ve also shown we can run assessments anywhere offline using laptop-hosted AI. That keeps the student data on site, with privacy and data sovereignty built into the design,” he adds. “The tutors shaped this and the technology just supports what they’re trying to assess.”  

WorldSkills next heads to Aichi, Japan, in 2028, and Bill says it's well worth it for anyone wanting to benchmark the quality of their training internationally.