One year of Kiro: how students are building the future, right now
Nicole Shum
Product Marketing
One year ago, we launched Kiro believing that AI coding workflows need structure, not just speed. As we mark one year, we’re proud to celebrate the builders who will shape what comes next: students. They’re stepping into a workforce where building with AI is the baseline, and they’re already ahead of it.
Since launching Kiro for students, thousands of students have been building with Kiro. We’ve seen projects spanning industries and disciplines - from an accessibility app that converts visual web content into audio feedback for visually impaired users, to a voice-activated remote wellness system connecting at-risk patients with medical professionals, to an electronics prototyping tool that turns natural-language descriptions into wired breadboard circuits with animated current flow to catch safety issues before physical assembly.
What stands out most is the range of student builders using Kiro. We’ve heard from hackathon veterans, first-time coders, CIC interns, and designers making the leap into development - all using Kiro differently, all shipping real projects.
For instance, Nicholas Riley is a computer science student at Cal Poly’s AWS DxHub, who uses Kiro to rapidly prototype solutions for real customers:
Kiro has been a game-changer for my work at the DxHub. It dramatically accelerates my prototyping workflow, letting me go from concept to working implementation in a fraction of the time. Features and functionality that would have been out of reach in our quick implementation cycles are now well within scope. Because Kiro streamlines so much of the development process, I spend less time writing code and more time thinking about the right technologies and approaches to solve the customer’s problem. That shift lets me deliver a broader range of capabilities, explore creative solutions, and innovate faster on behalf of our customers.
Nicholas Riley
Computer Science B.S. Class of ’27
California Polytechnic San Luis Obispo
Ava Luu, a computer science student at the University of Pittsburgh who works closely with AWS services, found Kiro’s developer-first design made it easy to hit the ground running:
I enjoy using Kiro because it’s developer-friendly. It makes it easy to plan project requirements, and you can follow along as it makes code changes. Installing MCP servers through Powers is also straightforward, so it’s quick to add specialized capabilities. Since I work closely with AWS, the AWS service-specific tooling has been very helpful!
Ava Luu
Computer Science B.S. Class of ’27
University of Pittsburgh
Then there’s Lahari Shakthi Arun, a UI/UX designer at Arizona State University who used Kiro to go from Figma prototypes to a fully deployed full-stack application - without a traditional development background:
Kiro has been the perfect bridge for me as a UI/UX designer transitioning into full-stack development. What used to take hours — writing specs, building the backend foundation, and wiring up infrastructure — now only takes 10–20 minutes. I went from a Figma prototype to a fully deployed, real full-stack app. But the best part? I actually understood every line of code that Kiro wrote. Kiro doesn’t replace the developer, it empowers them. It does the heavy lifting, but the insights are yours to discover.
Lahari Shakthi Arun
Graphic Information Technology B.S. Class of ’26
Arizona State University
And Sharon Liang, a recent graduate from Cal Poly, uses Kiro to bring more intentional planning into her workflow - the kind of structured thinking that translates directly to how professional engineering teams operate:
Kiro has been a great tool for accelerating my workflow while also helping validate and refine my technical decisions. I appreciate its meticulous approach to drafting design docs, validating requirements, and upfront planning before diving into implementation – it makes the development process feel much more collaborative and intentional!
Sharon Liang
Computer Science B.S. Class of ’26
California Polytechnic San Luis Obispo
We’re also grateful to have worked with faculty at universities across the country to bring this program to life - supporting virtual workshops, in-person hackathons, and classroom integrations that give students hands-on experience with structured AI coding.
I love hearing from our university partners, faculty, deans, and especially the students, about how Kiro is landing. From undergraduates participating in our hackathons to our Cloud Innovation Center interns, Kiro is helping student developers from all backgrounds build with confidence. Supporting this next generation is one of the most rewarding things we get to do.
— Kim Majerus, VP of Global Education and Local Government, AWS
We plan to expand our student offering later this year, host more campus workshops and hackathons, and continue investing in the tools and community that help students go from idea to shipped product.
If you're a student, head to kiro.dev/students to sign up for free. And if your school isn’t on the list yet, request it.
Connect with fellow student builders in the Kiro Student Discord Community. Share what you’re building with #KiroStudents — we’re @kirodotdev on X, LinkedIn, and Instagram, and @kiro.dev on Bluesky.
Want to co-host a hackathon with Kiro at your school? Let us know in the Discord. We’d love to partner with you.