AppliedAI

Overview
Save Time and Do More By Transforming Your PM Workflow with AI — No Coding Required

Join us for an intensive 4-hour workshop where we'll dive deep into Cursor, the AI-powered workspace that assists your day-to-day product management workflows in a fraction of the time. This isn't another "ChatGPT for PMs" session — this is hands-on training using a tool designed to integrate AI directly into your actual PM workflow. Dave Mathias will facilitate this session.

What You'll Learn

We'll work through the Cursor for Product Managers course created by Carl Vellotti together, mastering:

• Real PM workflows: Process meeting notes, synthesize user research, write PRDs, analyze data
• Custom automation: Build templates and slash commands for your repetitive PM tasks
• Multi-file context: Give AI the full picture across docs, research, and product data
• Image analysis: Get instant feedback on mockups and screenshots

Plus: We'll extend beyond the core course to explore practical applications for your day-to-day work as a product manager or product owner — from stakeholder communication to roadmap planning to competitive analysis.

What Makes This Different

• Learn by doing: Bring your laptop and work in Cursor alongside the group
• Interactive, not lecture: We'll build real PM deliverables together
• Practical focus: Leave with workflows you can use Monday morning
• Small group: Plenty of time for questions and customization to your specific needs

Who Should Attend
Product Managers, Product Owners, and anyone in product leadership who wants to leverage AI for actual work (not just chatbot conversations). No coding or terminal experience required — if you can describe what you want in plain English, you can use these tools.

Logistics

Food: Breakfast and snacks provided
Bring: Your laptop (Mac, Windows, or Linux)Prerequisites:
Cursor Pro subscription recommended (2-week free trial available)

• Download course materials before the session: Course Download

Space is limited to ensure everyone gets personalized attention. This is your chance to master AI-assisted product management in a supportive, hands-on environment.

Agenda

• 9:00am - 9:30am: Arrival and networking
• 9:30am-1pm: Hands on workshop
• 1:00pm onwards: Continued networking at Lake Monster Brewing

Meet Our Featured Speaker
Dave Mathias has spent much of his career at the intersection of product and advanced analytics. Currently, he is a Senior Director of Product at Shipwell where he builds AI-powered logistics solutions, and is also a Senior Lecturer at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management. He's the author of "Data Storytelling and Translation: Bridging the gap between numbers and narratives."

Sponsors
This event is sponsored by Lab651 & Recursive Awesome

Organizers
This event is part of the community interest groups series at Applied AI, where community members power sessions for niche interest areas through the Applied AI platform.

This event is organized and hosted by Cameron Gross, John DeBauche, and Beth-Alison Berggren.

Overview
Join us for an engaging conversation with Dr. Elizabeth M. Adams as she shares insights from her international AI work and explores what it means for Minnesota's technology landscape.

Fresh from a trade mission to Switzerland and Germany with the Governor, Dr. Adams will discuss how global AI developments are reshaping her vision for the Minnesota Responsible AI Institute. She'll share key takeaways from international approaches to AI governance and innovation—and how these insights could position Minnesota as a leader in responsible AI. She'll also share details about her upcoming book launch and the themes she explores in her latest work.

Agenda
6:00pm - 6:30pm: Networking - food & drinks
6:30pm - 8:00pm: Presentation & discussion
8:00pm: Networking at Lake Monster Brewing

Meet Our Featured Speaker
Dr. Elizabeth M. Adams is a Responsible AI leadership advisor, and founder of both the Minnesota Responsible AI Institute and EMA Advisory, where she works with senior leaders and boards around the world on high-stakes decisions at the intersection of artificial intelligence, ethics, leadership, and organizational purpose.

She is the author of the forthcoming book Leading in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Choosing Purpose Before Code and is known for helping leaders move beyond tools and trends to address deeper questions of stewardship, trust, and human-centered decision-making in an AI-enabled world.

Sponsors
This event is sponsored by Lab651 & Recursive Awesome

A Collaboration between AppliedAI and Nexus.

Ever wondered how ChatGPT, Claude, and other AI models actually work under the hood? Join us for an intensive one-day workshop where you’ll build a complete transformer model from scratch—and compete to see whose performs best.

What You’ll Learn
We begin with a fast-paced journey through AI history, from early debates on probability and free will to the breakthroughs that led from statistics to machine learning, neural networks, and finally transformers. You’ll see why attention mechanisms succeeded where earlier approaches fell short.
Then it’s hands-on. You’ll implement every major component of a transformer in Python and PyTorch:

• Tokenization and embeddings
• Self-attention and multi-head attention
• Positional encodings
• Transformer blocks
• Training loops and optimization

Who Should Attend

• Software engineers curious about AI internals
• Data scientists and ML practitioners who want to go beyond APIs
• Anyone who’s used ChatGPT and thought, “How does this actually work?”

Prerequisites: Python experience, a laptop with internet access, and curiosity. Neural network basics help, but aren’t required.

What You’ll Walk Away With

• A clear understanding of transformer architecture
• A working transformer implementation you can extend
• Real intuition for how modern AI models are trained and optimized

Schedule

• Morning (9:00–12:30): From early statistics to transformers, with a deep dive into attention and training
• Lunch provided (12:30–1:30)
• Afternoon (1:30–5:00): Build your transformer, train and tune it, submit results