The Problem
After my manager at Digital NEST attended an AI workshop hosted by OpenAI, he began exploring a collaboration with the Community Foundation of Monterey County, who was looking to develop an AI literacy curriculum for non-profit communications professionals. Digital NEST's development team had deep, hands-on experience with AI tools, including advanced techniques most users never reach, which made the partnership a natural fit. I was asked to sit in on the discovery call with little context — I assumed it would be another software project. It wasn't. The challenge wasn't to build a product, but to take a room full of communications professionals who had never used AI and convince them to adopt it as a core part of their workflow, in a single afternoon. The central question: how do you turn a room of complete AI beginners into advanced, confident users in three hours?
The Approach
When my manager asked me to lead this, it was unlike anything I'd taken on before. I had no playbook, no prior experience running a workshop, and an ambitious goal on a tight timeline. But I was all in. I was determined to stretch myself and deliver something that would genuinely make an impact. A standard slideshow lecture wasn't going to cut it — not for three hours, not for fifty people, and certainly not for a topic as hands-on as AI. We needed real interactivity, guided practice, social collaboration, and moments that made people laugh and feel comfortable before asking them to change how they work. We designed a workshop-style format that minimized passive lecture time and maximized active, practical engagement with the tools. My role was to co-lead the full execution: client communications, curriculum design, task delegation, and presentation.
Key Decisions
- Built a companion website as a centralized event hub — a single place for all resources, tools, and course content that attendees could reference during and long after the event
- Designed interactive AI-based games to open the session and warm up the room, getting attendees laughing and comfortable with the tools before the real learning began
- Capped lecture segments at 10-15 minutes, always followed by a hands-on activity to keep energy high and ensure attendees were building real skills rather than absorbing information passively
- Taught advanced prompting frameworks so attendees learned not just how to get an output, but how to get a great one — and why the underlying principles actually work
- Guided attendees through building real deliverables on the spot, including campaign strategy drafts and social media content, so they left with tangible materials and a repeatable process
The Outcome
The event exceeded expectations on every front. Attendees didn't just gain new technical skills — we shifted how they thought about AI entirely: not as a replacement for critical thinking, but as an accelerator of it. Our post-event survey came back with a 97% approval rating. What excited me most was the reach — we were speaking to professionals from multiple organizations, meaning every person in that room could return to their workplace and multiply the impact far beyond the event itself. On a personal level, this project changed how I see myself as a professional. I discovered that my abilities extend well beyond software engineering — that I could design a learning experience, communicate complex technical concepts clearly, and hold a room genuinely engaged. The success opened doors, and I've since built experience across multiple workshops. My goal for every single one: make it the best workshop the attendees have ever attended.