Working agent projects
One build each week, all on your own GitHub.
Emergera Academy · Flagship program
Building AI Agents
Go from using AI tools to building AI agents that complete real-world tasks. Four live weekends, three projects and a capstone you deploy.
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until kickoff, Friday, October 9 at 8:00 PM Eastern
- Starts
- Fri, Oct 9, 2026
- Live sessions
- Sat & Sun, 11:00 AM ET
- Length
- 4 weeks, 8 sessions
- Founding price
- $49
What you leave with
Much more than four weeks of classes.
A deployed capstone
Your own agent, tested, evaluated, deployed and demoed at Demo Day.
Live sessions, recorded
Slides, starter and solution code, cheat sheets and every recording.
Completion certificate
An Emergera Certificate of Completion, with a Distinction tier for top capstones.
Community access
Stay connected with your cohort, the instructor and the wider Emergera community.
Career-pathway eligibility
Eligible learners can be considered for career opportunities through USM Business Systems.
Is this for you?
Built for people who use AI and want to build with it.
- Students and recent graduates who want a portfolio that shows real AI engineering work
- Working professionals who want to automate real tasks in their role
- Developers who have called an LLM API and want to build agents that are reliable
You'll need basic Python and about 6 to 7 hours a week, including the live sessions.
Curriculum
Four weeks, four milestones.
Two 90-minute live sessions a week, a weekly office hour, and about 3 to 4 hours of hands-on work. A short setup week comes first so everyone starts with a working environment.
- 01Week one
Foundations and your first agent
- LLMs vs workflows vs agents
- The agent loop
- System prompts
- Context and tokens
- Tools and schemas
- Stopping conditions
- Environment setup
Week 1 project
Personal Research Assistant. An agent that uses two or more tools and answers with sources.
- 02Week two
Tools, APIs and workflows
- Tool design
- External APIs
- Structured outputs
- Errors and retries
- Search and retrieval
- Workflow patterns
- Multi-step tasks
Week 2 project
Useful Automation Agent. Automate a real, repetitive task end to end with structured output.
- 03Week three
Real-world agent systems
- RAG and context
- Memory
- Human-in-the-loop
- Guardrails
- Prompt injection
- Evaluation
- Multi-agent concepts
- Deployment patterns
Week 3 project
Knowledge Assistant with Guardrails. Cited answers over your own documents, an approval step and an evaluation set.
- 04Week four
Capstone: build and deploy
- Architecture review
- Implementation
- Testing
- Deployment
- README and demo
- Demo Day
Capstone
Your own agent, deployed. Solo or in a small team, presented at Demo Day.
Founding Cohort schedule
Four weekends. Eight live sessions.
Live sessions run Saturdays and Sundays, 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern (8:00 to 9:30 AM Pacific, 8:30 to 10:00 PM in India). Every session is recorded.
| Dates | Week | Sessions |
|---|---|---|
| Fri, Oct 9, 8:00 PM ET | Kickoff | Orientation and setup. Meet your cohort, set up Python, VS Code and your API key, and run the starter agent. |
| Sat, Oct 10 and Sun, Oct 11 | Week 1 | Foundations and your first agent. What an agent actually is, then your first working agent. |
| Sat, Oct 17 and Sun, Oct 18 | Week 2 | Tools, APIs and workflows. Tool calling and structured outputs, then search, retrieval and multi-step workflows. |
| Sat, Oct 24 and Sun, Oct 25 | Week 3 | Real-world agent systems. RAG, context and memory, then reliability, safety, evaluation and deployment. |
| Sat, Oct 31 and Sun, Nov 1 | Week 4 | Capstone and Demo Day. Capstone build lab and deployment, then Demo Day. |
Enrollment closes Thursday, October 8. Capstones are due November 8 and certificates are issued by November 15.
Your instructor
Jay Bobba
CEO of Emergera · Lead instructor
Jay leads the live sessions, builds alongside you in each one, and judges Demo Day.
After the course
Your path continues.
Finish with a Talent Profile that holds your projects, assessments and credentials. Eligible learners can be considered for career opportunities through USM Business Systems.
Founding Cohort, limited seats
Build career-relevant AI skills for less than the cost of a textbook.
$49Founding Cohort
4 weeks, live
4 weeks, live
- 8 live sessions with Jay Bobba, all recorded
- 3 agent projects plus a deployed capstone
- Course material, certificate and community access
- Founding Member badge on your Talent Profile
- Career-pathway eligibility
Questions
Before you join.
Do I need to know how to code?
You should be able to write basic Python: variables, functions, lists and dictionaries, and installing packages with pip. The setup week includes a short readiness check, and a Python refresher recording is available if you need it.
Is the program live or recorded?
Both. Sessions are live on weekends, 90 minutes each, and every session is recorded so you can catch up. There is also a weekly office hour.
Are there other costs?
You will use your own AI model API key. Using a small model for development, most learners spend under $10 in API usage across the whole program. The rest of the tools cost nothing to use.
When does the Founding Cohort start?
Friday, October 9, 2026, with orientation at 8:00 PM Eastern. Live sessions follow every Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM Eastern, through Sunday, November 1.
Will the price stay at $49?
$49 is the Founding Cohort price, for the first cohort only.
Can I get a refund?
Yes. You get a full refund if you ask before Session 2. See the refund policy for details.
What happens after the course?
Learners who complete the program with a strong capstone and a finished Talent Profile become eligible for the Emergera career pathway. Eligible learners can be considered for career opportunities through USM Business Systems.
Can my company enroll a team?
Yes. Emergera Professional runs custom and corporate AI training. See the For Companies page or email [email protected].