Practical AI learning for people with real work to do
Understand the tools. Find the opportunities. Put AI to work in the organization you already have.
Live online, in small groups. No technical background required.
Sound familiar?
Led by Sherif AbushadiEducator, builder & AI advisorPractical learning.
Experienced guidance.
30 years
in software, startups to the Fortune 100
15,000+
adults taught, bootcamps on six continents
120
corporate engagements since 2005
Microsoft, Stripe, Verizon, the FAA and the Library of Congress are among them.
01 / WHAT YOU’LL GAIN
You have work to do. These programs give you set time to learn, test ideas, and make better decisions about AI.
01
Understand what AI tools can do, where they fall short, and which developments deserve your attention.
A clearer view of the AI landscape
02
Look at a real workflow. Identify opportunities, compare approaches, and decide what is worth trying.
A prioritized opportunity list
03
Build a small prototype, check its output, and learn what it would take to use it in practice.
A tested prototype and reusable playbook
04
Turn what you found into an experiment your team owns. Add checks and a plan for what comes next.
A practical 30-day action plan
The five-week program covers all four. The shorter formats cover the first step.
BUILT AROUND YOUR REALITY
Start with the work you already do and the constraints you already have.
Map a workflow before you choose a tool. Pick an experiment that fits the processes you run today.
Give technical and business colleagues a common language. Guided practice makes it concrete.
Practice comparing tools and judging results. That skill holds as the tools change.
TRY A REALISTIC TASK
Spot changes in demand and costs, trace them to the source, and decide what deserves a closer look.
Try a working radar with sample demand, energy, and wage data. Change priorities and see what happens when a source gets stale.
Give an AI assistant the checked records and your company context. Keep the evidence separate from the assistant’s interpretation.
Take the working starter, prompts, and test log. Follow the guide to connect a source from your own work.
01: CHOOSE YOUR FORMAT
A briefing to get oriented. A workshop to try one task. Five days to agree a team experiment. Five weeks to build your own project.
GET ORIENTED
WHAT WE DOWe show AI working on one real task from start to finish. You ask questions as we go and try one step yourself. You leave with one thing to try at work this week.
GET ALIGNED
Team discovery week
WHAT WE DOWe work with your team on one problem you already have. Everyone learns the same terms, builds the same example, and checks it. You leave agreeing on the next experiment instead of arguing about it.
BUILD A PRACTICE
Applied AI program
WHAT WE DOWe guide you through five weekly sessions and five labs while you build your own project. You test it, revise it, and exchange it with another group to try. You leave with a working result, a playbook, and a 30-day plan.
Prices are per person, in euro. Team programs and follow-on projects are quoted separately. We confirm dates and times before you book. Labs are included in the five-week program. Extra practice on your own is optional.
02: THE FIVE-WEEK CURRICULUM
Bring one task from your work through five stages. Map it. Build a first version. Test it. Hand over the instructions. Decide what comes next. The shorter formats use the same stages on a smaller scale.
Pick one task you do often and describe how it works today, before you touch anything. Most people skip this and start with the tool. Write down the inputs, the steps, the decisions a person makes, and what a good result looks like. This is the example you compare against later.
TAKE IT WITH YOUA workflow map and an example to compare against
Give an assistant a clear task, the source material, and the rules for a good result. Expect the first attempt to be wrong in some way. Fix one thing and run it again. Stay on the part that confuses you rather than the part you already know how to do.
TAKE IT WITH YOUA first working example and reusable instructions
Test the result with an ordinary case, a hard case, and an incomplete one. Check every claim against the source. When it fails, read the failure closely before you change anything. Then compare it with how you do the task today. Is the result better, and how long does it take once you count the time spent checking it?
TAKE IT WITH YOUA test log and a decision to proceed, revise, or park
Hand your instructions to someone else and watch them use it. When they ask for help, say “no” three times before saying “yes”. Where they stumble, you find out what you left out. Fix those steps. Name who checks the result and what to do when it fails. Agree where you get help once the session is over.
TAKE IT WITH YOUInstructions someone else has tried and a support plan
Decide whether this deserves more of your time, or someone else’s. If it does, work out how it reaches the next person: a colleague, your team, a customer. Write down who owns it, how you will know it worked, and when you look again. If it does not, stop, and say why. That is a good result too.
TAKE IT WITH YOUA finished playbook and a 30-day action and review plan
HOW A SESSION WORKS
Start by getting comfortable. If you are anxious you learn less, so the first minutes are for questions and getting settled. We explain one idea and show it working on a real task. You try the same task yourself, with help when you get stuck. At some point the explanation stops helping. That moment of confusion is the last milestone before you learn something, not a sign to stop. We compare results as a group and check what held up. You leave with your instructions, your findings, and one thing you did not know an hour earlier.
Every session follows a practice guide. The guides are free, and the first one is yours when you join the waitlist. Use it to see how a session works before you book anything.
Join the waitlist to get your first practice guideTWO APPROACHES TO THE SAME MATERIAL
Both lead to the same result. You build something you can check, explain, and use. Pick a starting preference. We agree the pace with the group.
Learn by doing.
Try several approaches to the same task. Compare the results, choose one, and improve it.
Learn through curation.
Start with one approach. Examine the result, refine the instructions, and work through it again.
YOUR FACILITATOR
Hi, I’m Sherif. I teach people how to put technology to work on real problems.
I have been designing and developing software since the late 1990s. I started as a developer at a small product company building tools for government services, stayed with a services firm from 80 people to 280 and back down through the crash, then worked at a run of startups before starting my first company to build software for the real estate construction industry. From there I moved into business process automation and worked with about 120 clients, among them Microsoft, Verizon and The Home Depot, as well as U.S. federal programs worth tens of millions of dollars. I have taught alongside that work since 2001. As an adjunct at Johns Hopkins, in corporate training, in coding bootcamps, and in education leadership for a global technology foundation. More than 15,000 adults in total.
Since 2023 I have done this work through futureproof, mostly for owner-run companies. A brick plant where operators describe their work out loud and the system writes the training standard. An inspection business automating matching it used to do by hand. A geotechnical firm preparing to run five times the projects and tenders it runs today. An online school generating accredited courses. A property developer screening fifty thousand sites at once. Each one started as a task somebody did every week. That is where the practice starts too. When the experiment proves out, futureproof builds the rest with one of your people alongside, so it stays yours.
We start with a question from your work. We build an answer and test it. You leave knowing how it works and where it breaks.
Confusion is the last milestone before you learn something.
School taught most of us to hide it until the test was over. In my sessions we do the opposite. When one person asks a question, I ask who else was helped by it, and hands go up around the room. After that the questions keep coming, and the room learns faster than any one person in it could alone.
IN THEIR WORDS · 58 QUOTES
Reflections from people I’ve taught and worked with.
I've also become a more effective learner and gained skills that I believe I can use on virtually any topic.
I think in the beginning it's just a little drop of water. Now we can swim in the ocean.
Thank you for giving the mental side of the learning experience as well.
I'm just using my email tracker. It's working perfectly fine.
He knows precisely how to get you to figure out the problem without revealing the answer too much.
I can easily follow up artists, exhibitions, my inventory.
I just got out of the FOMO a bit. … I have to know, but I cannot know everything.
Sherif is great at spending time with a student and not making them feel self conscious when they don't understand something the first (or second, or third) time.
Two words. More Sherif.
Scroll to browse the highlights, or open the full wall below.
I've also become a more effective learner and gained skills that I believe I can use on virtually any topic.
I think in the beginning it's just a little drop of water. Now we can swim in the ocean.
Thank you for giving the mental side of the learning experience as well.
I'm just using my email tracker. It's working perfectly fine.
He knows precisely how to get you to figure out the problem without revealing the answer too much.
I can easily follow up artists, exhibitions, my inventory.
I just got out of the FOMO a bit. … I have to know, but I cannot know everything.
Sherif is great at spending time with a student and not making them feel self conscious when they don't understand something the first (or second, or third) time.
Two words. More Sherif.
It was very entertaining and it held my attention from beginning to end.
Engaging. Entertaining. Brought up good areas of improvement / things to work on.
Engaged the audience. Drove people to contribute. Simplified and summarized people's contributions well.
Very good teaching style -- made the content / class enjoyable.
That drawing you made is one of the most simple and crystal clear drawings of how an email system works.
Informative. Insightful. Important.
Great instructor who was intelligent and engaging.
Very good content & instructor -- engaging and entertaining.
The instructor was engaged and fostered a great deal of discussion.
The instructor did a fantastic job of keeping the class engaged.
Instructor has given good examples. Worked patiently with class to answer questions.
Educational, informative, well prepared, entertaining. Good discussion generated and encouraged by instructor
Great class! Instructor was very knowledgeable and very thorough when asked questions.
Excellent class. Great for beginners or folks with years of experience.
Excellent instructor! Great job of "feeling" the class and adjusting as necessary.
Great discussions, interesting concepts and the instructor was awesome!
Sherif really helped scale back the session a bit to scaffold the lesson in recursion.
First, you have to think clearly what you want.
Sherif is awesome! His explanations are clear and concise.
I appreciated when Sherif stepped in a few times to cut off rabbit holes when students would ask unnecessarily specific or off topic questions.
Sherif's points on meta-learning are AWESOME
This has been an incredible journey. I have learned so much, mostly about how to learn. It's hard to imagine a better teacher than Sherif.
Sherif was great at taking care of us and managing expectations, at the same time did not baby us and gave us enough room to grow on our own with a comfortable amount of discomfort.
Sherif has a wealth of knowledge about programming and is also a natural mentor and educator
I loved Sherif; I truly think he's a guru of teaching and uniquely talented to identify the learning styles and givens of each individual and work within them to optimize learning patterns. His style of speaking is also contagious and very reassuring.
The first lecture we had with Sherif was laser focused on approach and because of how fast he moves and shares his thought process, we end up getting a lot of "content" as well. Everyone loved that lecture.
Sherif has been awesome at pointing me in the right direction. I want more of that!
Sherif's presentation on learning mindsets and expertise was pretty inspiring stuff.
The conversations/talks from Sherif about learning have been insightful.
I really enjoyed all of the talks by Sherif.
I appreciated Sherif being involved in a lot of our lectures, because it seemed that he was able to identify gaps in the lecture and make sure that things stayed on track and that people were understanding what was presented.
Every time that Sherif speaks about learning how to learn (and probably any topic for that matter), it's so inspiring. I want to hear more about this and constantly work on optimizing my learning.
I'd like more talks from Sherif. He brings a much different perspective. One that I am fond of.
I love the calm and patient way Sherif explains things and always add some hints on how to approach those kind of problems in a more general way.
Sherif is a truly kind and generous person, as well as being a great teacher.
Sherif combines his knowledge with a great understanding of people and learning styles to dissect problems.
Sherif's methodical way of testing and thinking, taught me how to dissect my own code as the programs get larger. At first, I got upset because I just wanted to keep banging my head into irb, but Sherif showed me that if you breathe, take a step back and understand where to test and print to debug the problems seem to get easier and smaller.
Thanks Sherif. While it is not in my personality to relax and step away you have given me inspiration to do that and it has helped me tremendously.
Sherif is very kind. He is sometimes too self-deprecating -- we would be nowhere without him.
I like that you like to abstract things and start explaining not with the code at hand but by talking about the bigger picture.
Thank you for being calm, in control, giving actionable advice and feedback, and just caring about me as human as well. Your presence sets me at ease.
I found him friendly and supportive, and he also used great metaphors to help me think about problem-solving (especially the "hamburger in a foreign language" example).
I asked all the instructors to pair. Sherif was the only one who did so on a daily basis.
Sherif is one of the few teachers I've had who's able to really challenge me and make me think in a different way. His explanations of problems and concepts really helped me.
I love the way he always looks you in the eye when he speaks to you. It makes you feel like he's fully invested and engaged.
You truly care about our well-being and you have an amazing way with words when explaining difficult concepts.
Sherif is very approachable. He is good at breaking down a problem and explaining it in a way that anyone could understand. He is good at reading a student and understanding what their specific needs are.
I learned a lot from you, especially in our pairing session. You have a great way of eliciting people's thoughts and expectations from them.
Sherif is an amazing, inspiring person. He is an excellent teacher and mentor.
Excerpts from written feedback and live sessions. Spoken excerpts lightly edited for readability.
Learn with Sherif, at your pace.
Explore the learning formats03: BRING YOUR TEAM
Work on a shared problem with the people who make decisions and do the work. The five-day week produces an agreed experiment. The five-week program adds a tested project and a plan for your team to keep learning. When the experiment proves out, we can stay and build it with your team.
Discuss a team programKeep a short brief of relevant AI developments and their sources.
Compare a small experiment with the way your team works today.
Record the evidence, choose the next experiment, and name an owner.
Agree when your team will check progress and decide what to adopt, revise, or stop.
A FEW GOOD QUESTIONS
Anyone who has to make AI useful at work. That includes people working on their own, small teams, and leaders of larger ones. The briefing, the workshop, and the five-week program run as small public groups. It fits best when you have to weigh AI against existing systems, set processes, and other priorities.
No. You do not need to code. We explain the terms, walk through each step, and help you practice. Your result can be a document, a spreadsheet, or a repeatable task. If you have not chosen a problem of your own yet, start with one of ours.
We start with a task from your work. We explain one idea and walk through an example. You try it with guidance, check the result, and save your instructions and findings. The briefing uses a prepared example. The longer formats give you time to apply the same process to your own work.
No. They are two ways through the same material. With FA5TER you try several approaches to a task, compare the results, and improve one. With sl0wer you start with one approach, examine the result, and refine it step by step. You can change your mind. We agree the pace with the group.
Yes. A group can include people who prefer either pace. One-to-one sessions are available for a specific goal. For a company program we start with a call to agree the group, the scope, and the pace.
The briefing takes 50 minutes. The workshop takes five hours, breaks included. The team week takes 90 minutes a day for five days. The five-week program takes a 90-minute session and a 90-minute lab each week. We confirm the schedule with you before you book.
Yes. We work with your executives, your team, or a mix of both on one shared problem. In five days you agree an experiment, an owner, and how you will judge the result. In five weeks you add a tested project, shared instructions, and a plan to keep reviewing opportunities.
You do not have to stop at the prototype. The company behind the practice, futureproof, takes tested experiments through to working systems. We build with one of your people alongside, so it stays yours after we leave. Most of those projects start with the team week or the five-week program, and the 30-day review is usually where the conversation begins. Ask on the call.
Bring your workflows, your approved tools, and your constraints. We agree the materials with you before the sessions. Where you need it, we use sample or anonymized data. A learning prototype explores an idea. Taking it into production needs its own technical and security review. That is work we can scope with you.
No dates are open yet. Join the waitlist and we email you when the first dates open. Prices are listed above. The five-week program is €1,499 per seat. Billed in euro through Stripe. VAT is added at checkout and you receive a VAT invoice. Full refund up to seven days before your date. After that, move to any later date at no cost. For a company program we scope the work on a call and send a proposal. Joining the waitlist is free and commits you to nothing.
No. We provide the learning materials. If a tool or account costs money, we tell you before you book. The bookshelf is a reading list, not a shopping list.
YOUR JOURNEY STARTS HERE
Register your interest in the first public groups or a private team program.
Tell us what you want to understand or try. We reply with the format, dates, and details. For company programs we start with a call.
When you join, you get the practice guides.
Free to express interest. No payment or commitment.