AI readiness academy · Schools, colleges, health systems, nonprofits
Bring one process. Leave with it working.
Your people have been told to use AI. We help them rethink their role instead: break their work down, practice on a simulation of it, improve the real thing, and keep the judgment that belongs with a person.
Process improvement across education, healthcare, aerospace and finance
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt
Ph.D. in philosophical theology
The gap
Told to use AI. Never shown how.
Most staff have heard the speeches and watched the demos. What they have not had is time to try AI on their own work without risk, someone to check their thinking, and clear rules about what stays with a person.
So adoption stalls, or it happens quietly and unevenly, and the people closest to the work start worrying about their jobs instead of getting better at them. We close that gap one process at a time.
How we think
What are people for, now that machines can do so much of the work?
That question sits under every AI decision a mission-driven organization makes. Most AI training skips it and goes straight to the tools. We answer it first, with five disciplines working together, so your people come out with a bigger role, not a smaller one.
Philosophy
We start with purpose. Before anyone decides what AI should do, the team names what the work is for and what only people can give it: judgment, care and accountability.
Ethics
Every change asks who benefits, who carries the risk, and what a machine should never decide alone. The answers become written rules your staff can actually use.
Process improvement
Lean and Six Sigma tools break work into steps, show where the time goes, and prove whether a change helped. AI goes where the process says it should, not everywhere.
Simulation-based learning
Teams rehearse on a realistic copy of their own work, filled with fictional data. Mistakes cost nothing, and confidence is earned before it counts.
Complexity and systems thinking
Work is a system. Change one step and something else moves. We map the handoffs, feedback loops and side effects, so an improvement holds instead of shifting the problem down the hall.
Together, they redefine the job. People spend less time pushing work through steps and more time designing, judging and improving the work itself. That is the workforce mission-driven organizations need in the age of AI, and it is what we build.
Bring your work, not the latest model
We don’t teach the model of the month
Models change every few months. Your work does not change that fast. We show your people how to break their work into steps, see where the time and frustration go, and then use AI the way they would use any good tool: to automate what should be automated and to catalyze the change the work actually needs.
Bring your problems
The training starts with the process that costs your team the most time. Not a generic case study. Yours.
Break it down
Map it, time it, find the waste and the risk. Much of the value shows up here, before AI touches anything.
Then choose the tool
Sometimes that is Claude. Sometimes it is a checklist or a better handoff. The skill your people keep is knowing which.
Simulation-based training
Practice where mistakes are free
Every program starts in a simulation built from the shape of your real work: the forms, the requests, the exceptions, filled with fictional data. People practice there first, then bring what works into the real process.
Safe to get wrong
People try, miss and try again without touching a real record or a real person. That is how nervous staff become confident ones.
No sensitive data in the room
Simulations use realistic, fictional records, so student, patient and personnel information never enters a training exercise.
Feedback in the moment
Claude responds to every attempt as it happens, so practice turns into skill in hours, not months.
Skill that transfers
Like pilots in a simulator, your team rehearses the real work before it counts, then carries what works straight into the real process.
How a program runs
Five steps, one real process
01
Choose
Pick one recurring process your team owns and feels every week.
02
Simulate
Practice it in a simulation built from your real work.
03
Decide
Agree what stays human, and why, before anything changes.
04
Build
Put one AI-assisted step into the real process, with checks.
05
Measure
Compare before and after, so the result is a number.
Ways to work with us
Start small or bring the whole team
| Offer | Investment | What you leave with |
|---|---|---|
| Live webinar, December 2026 | About $100 per person | A live working session on one process and a first taste of the method |
| The Human Edge Summit, Atlanta, March 2027 | $200 to $500 per person; team pricing | Two working days on your own process, with a Yellow Belt assessment |
| On-site day | $3,000 to $4,000 | One team, one process, one day at your location, simulation included |
| Team program, 4 to 8 weeks | $12,000 to $45,000 | Graded project work, belts earned, before-and-after results |
| Advisory | From about $1,000 a month | Regular working calls while your team takes over the work |
The Academy
The AI Process Improvement Yellow Belt
Process improvement tools find the right problem and prove the result. AI does more of the heavy lifting. Our belts teach both as one practice, earned on your own work: Claude coaches you through simulation practice, and a person reviews your project and signs your belt.
- Open to individuals and to teams
- Earned with one improved task, measured before and after
- A maturity path: Yellow for your own task, Green for a team process, Black for change across teams
| Belt | To earn it |
|---|---|
| Yellow Improve one task | One improved task with before-and-after results |
| Green Redesign a team process | A measured team project, including what did not work |
| Black Lead change across teams | Lead several projects and coach Green Belts |
Who we serve
Institutions that serve people
We are social entrepreneurs in the age of AI. We work with institutions whose mission depends on their people more than their software, and we price so they can say yes.
School districts
HR, finance and operations teams carrying more work with the same staff.
Higher education
Registrar, student services, HR and advancement offices asked to do more.
Our mission
To help people and institutions remain agentic, meaningful and capable amid AI-driven disruption, by pairing timeless disciplines of judgment and purpose with modern disciplines of process and performance.
Atlanta · March 2027
The Human Edge Summit
Our first annual AI summit. Two working days where every participant brings one process, practices it in simulation with Claude running the coursework, and leaves with it working. Dates, venue and registration are announced in January.
The Human Edge
Writing on work, judgment and AI
The Human Edge is our research-backed publication and podcast. We write about what should stay human, what leaders still own when the tool does the work, and how work is changing in the institutions we serve. Every claim is sourced.
AI-native, in plain terms
We run on the methods we teach
Being AI-native simply means AI is part of how we do our own work every day, the way email and spreadsheets are for everyone else. We use it to research, draft, build simulations and give learners feedback. People check the output, make the decisions and own the results. So when we teach your team, we teach from daily practice, not from a slide deck.
The people behind it
Three leaders, three lanes
Edwine Michel
Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Strategy & Operations · Denver
Spent twenty years making organizations run better, from defense engineering and financial services to education philanthropy, and built Lean Six Sigma programs inside two large school districts. He leads strategy, program design and the operating system behind every engagement.
Joseph Terry, Ph.D.
Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Research & Insights · New York
Spent years teaching people to think clearly as a philosopher and CUNY professor, after starting out in astrophysics and earning a doctorate in philosophical theology. He leads research, the judgment curriculum, and The Human Edge essays and podcast.
Idly Etienne
President and Managing Director · Atlanta
Built accountability and mentorship systems in Atlanta public education, then founded and grew a real estate brokerage to more than thirty agents. He leads growth, institutional partnerships and program delivery, including the Human Edge Summit.
Tell us which process hurts most
A 20-minute listening call. We ask what you are working through, which process costs your team the most time, and whether we are the right fit. If we are not, we will say so.