Generative AI Bootcamp - Aug 2025

Dates

• Wednesday 27 August 2025 (Levels 1 & 2) and Thursday 11 September 2025 (Level 3). Bookings close at 12noon Monday 25 August 2025 unless sold out prior

Please note this course commences at 9.00am and runs till 1.00pm both days

Learn how to effectively use AI in your workplace by building your AI Literacy.

This AI Literacy series gives you the tools to unlock real value from Generative AI, moving from basic prompt crafting to full-scale automation. In the first session, which covers Levels 1 & 2, you’ll learn how to shape clear, effective prompts that get better results from AI, setting the stage for more advanced use cases. Then, you’ll create reusable prompts and automating everyday workflows to save time and boost team efficiency. The final session, which covers Level 3, dives into automating entire processes, freeing up time for higher-level strategic work.

This course empowers you to streamline tasks, enhance productivity, and make Generative AI a part of your daily operations.

Levels 1 & 2

Generative AI (GenAI) Foundations and Basic Prompting

Content:

• Introduction to GenAI: Overview of how GenAI works, with a focus on next-token prediction, scaling trends, and some of its emergent capabilities.
• Few-shot Prompting: Learn the essentials of prompt formulation, including how to provide templates to the AI

Learning Outcomes:

• Understand how GenAI uses next-word-prediction to build complex conversations.
• Understand why models keep getting bigger and what this means for training data.
• Write a few-shot prompt and know how to improve it.

Getting Better at Prompting

Content:

• Prompt refinement: The first attempt is never great – we’ll look at how to make your first prompt better.

• Multi-modal prompting: How to combine your prompts with images, screenshots and documents.
• Meta-prompting: Even more outsourcing, this time getting the AI to write its own prompts.
• Other Prompting Techniques: Chain of thought prompting (step-by-step reasoning) and ensemble prompting (multiple models).

Learning Outcome:

• Try out advanced prompting techniques for different kinds of problems.

Common Use Cases and Practical Applications

Content:

• Tutor and Peer Review: Prompts to learn new ideas and get feedback.
• Identifying misinformation: Classify the four ways that GenAI output can be wrong and know how to spot them.
• Text and Tone Modification: Experiment with prompts to adjust style, tone, and level of formality in text.
• Document Query and Summarization: Practice using models like NotebookLM for querying long documents and generating summaries.

Learning Outcomes:

• Build a workflow prompt that can replicate complex organisational tasks.
• Use GenAI to augment your own learning in information-rich environments.
• Understand and engage in text modification while checking underlying messages haven’t been changed.
• Effectively look for mistakes in GenAI output.

Developing Simple GPTs

Content:

• Introduction to GPT Customization: Explore the basics of developing tailored GPTs for specific tasks or workflows.
• Hands-on GPT Creation: Build simple, task-oriented GPTs with custom instructions, using provided templates or starting from scratch.
• Crossing the line: We’ll explore some clearly unethical use cases and discuss the ethical challenges that can arise.

Learning Outcomes:

• Build a simple GenAI computer program to automate simple tasks for you.
• How to start thinking about GenAI and organisational responsibility.

Level 3

Automating Workflow and Scaling AI

• Goal: Help participants stack AI tasks to create automated end-to-end processes.
• Content:
• Introduction to task stacking: How to use AI to handle multiple tasks at once.
• Automating entire workflows from data entry to report generation.
• Calling multiple GPTs in one chat to streamline different processes simultaneously.
• AI as a strategic tool: Implementing AI-driven solutions for repetitive and labour-intensive tasks.
• Practical Exercises:
• Participants will design AI workflows specific to their roles, from start to end, automating daily tasks using stacked GPTs.
• Learning Outcomes:
• Participants will leave with the ability to design automated workflows that reduce manual intervention, freeing up time for higher-level strategic work.

Course Facilitators - Elsamari Botha and David Dempsey

Dr Elsamari Botha - is the MBA Director and a senior lecturer above the bar in Digital Transformation and Technology Preparedness at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, and an extraordinary associate professor at the University of Stellenbosch Business School, South Africa. She attained her PhD at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.

Elsamari was the Academic Director of Educate24 (a Media24 online education start-up); a research associate at the Institute for Futures Research (IFR); and a frequent speaker at Seamless Africa. Elsamari’s research focuses on online consumer behaviour, digital transformation, and digital disruption and its associated technologies. Elsamari has published in leading international journals.

David Dempsey - Dr David Dempsey is an Associate Professor at UC’s Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering. He delivers Generative AI training for the 800 undergraduates, PhD students, and staff within his department. His research uses Artificial Intelligence to provide advanced warning of volcanic eruptions, floods and wildfires. He has previously worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Stanford University, and the University of Auckland.

This Course is $1050pp including GST and Humanitix booking fees.
Course fees include morning tea (all dietary requirements catered for)

Please note this course can be customised to your needs or delivered 'as is' in-house.