🧜‍♀️ The AI Collective Hampton Roads

New AI tools are dropping every week. Bookmarks are piling up. “To-be-studied” lists are growing faster than we can keep up with.
Sound familiar?

Peninsula Builders Study Group is a local initiative for students and developers of the Peninsula area who want to stop meaning to learn and start actually doing it—together.
There’s no pressure to be an expert, and no bootcamp intensity. Just a consistent habit, a room full of curious people, and the accountability that comes from showing up.

How it works:
We meet every two weeks on Tuesdays from 6:00–7:30 PM at CNU. Sessions are a mix of focused study and group discussion.

Things to bring:

• Laptop
• Earphones/headphones

Notice: This meeting will be recorded. By joining and remaining in this meeting, you consent to being recorded. If you do not consent, please do not join.

Claude + Social Media Pipelines: One Post → Every Platform, Automatically —

You create one piece of content. Claude turns it into 10+ platform-specific posts, schedules them across LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok — and keeps your brand voice consistent across all of them.

This isn't AI-generated slop. This is a structured pipeline: source content → repurpose in your voice → schedule → post → analyze what worked. The tools are free or low-cost. The output is content that sounds like you, not a robot.

This is a live demo workshop. We'll build a complete social media pipeline from scratch — starting with a single YouTube video and ending with a week's worth of scheduled, platform-native content across every channel.

What we'll cover:

🔗 The Social Media Stack Inside Claude How Blotato MCP, Meta MCP, Puppeteer MCP, Skills, and Routines combine into a single content engine — and why this stack replaces $200-500/mo in social media tools.

📱 Demos We'll Build Live:

• Blotato Multi-Platform Publisher — connect your social accounts and publish to LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok from one Claude conversation
• YouTube-to-Everything Repurposer — take a YouTube video or podcast episode, extract key insights, and generate platform-native posts for 5+ channels automatically
• Brand Voice Skill — create a voice-guide.md so Claude writes like you across every platform, every time
• Meta Ads Manager — manage Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns directly from Claude using Meta MCP (shipped April 29, 2026)
• Puppeteer Browser Poster — post to platforms that don't have official API connectors using headless browser automation
• Content Calendar Routine — set up a weekly Routine that runs your entire content pipeline on autopilot: research trending topics → draft posts → schedule across platforms
• Full Pipeline Demo — raw source content → brand-voiced repurposing → multi-platform scheduling → performance tracking, end to end

📊 The Numbers The social media management market is growing from $27B (2024) to $125B (2032). 56% of marketers are already integrating AI. Teams adopting agentic AI report a 300x output increase. This event shows you how to capture that — without hiring a social media team.

Who this is for: Content creators, marketers, founders, and business owners who want to multiply their content output without multiplying their time. If you're posting manually to each platform, spending hours repurposing content, or paying for scheduling tools that don't integrate with AI — this is the session. Prior experience with Claude is helpful but not required.

Who this is NOT for: People looking for theory. This is a hands-on workshop. Every demo involves setting up real connections and publishing real content. If you're looking for a high-level overview of AI in marketing, this isn't it.

What you'll leave with: ✅ A working multi-platform social media pipeline connected to your accounts ✅ A free setup guide with every demo walkthrough, step by step ✅ A brand voice skill file you can use immediately ✅ A homework doc with bonus pipelines, advanced automations, and exercises ✅ Understanding of Blotato MCP, Meta MCP, Puppeteer MCP, Skills, and Routines for social media

Prerequisites: — A Claude Pro, Max, or Team subscription (Cowork or Claude Code) — Social media accounts you want to connect (LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok) — A Blotato account (free tier available — we'll walk through setup) — A piece of existing content to repurpose (YouTube video, blog post, podcast episode, or even a set of notes)

🎙️ Your Speaker Andrew Stafford Co-Lead of The AI Collective Hampton Roads. 25+ years across technology, cloud architecture, and AI — including work with Amazon, NASA, healthcare platforms, and enterprise systems. Author of AI for Business. Currently building at the intersection of AI tooling, agentic workflows, and practical business automation.

About the challenge
Welcome to the AI for Learning & Development Build Challenge with the AI Collective Hampton Roads Chapter to be held at the Regent University Library in Virginia Beach.

This is a local build challenge with an in-person kickoff, followed by a two-week build phase, then an in-person presentation & judging event.

You'll have two weeks to build an AI application based on the problem statement shared at the kickoff event. This AI Build Challenge is open to adult participants of all skill levels, from experienced developers to beginner using no or low code tools. You're encouraged to use AI tools to further your development. After the build phase, you'll deliver an in-person presentation to judges and other attendees. The winning projects will receive prizes (TBA).

Kickoff on Thursday, June 4th from 6:30–8:00pm.
We encourage you to join us in person in the Regent Library Auditorum, but the kickoff will be also be recorded if you're unable to attend.

Build Phase from June 5th through 18th. You can work individually or in teams.

Presentations & Judging on Thursday, June 18th from 6:30–9:00pm. Return to the Regent Library Auditorium to share your work! Presentations must be delivered in person to be considered for judging and prizes.

Prizes
We’re excited to share that this build challenge will include a $1,000 prize pool for standout projects. Whether you’re a student, parent, educator, technologist, entrepreneur, or just curious about AI, this is a chance to team up, build something useful, and compete for real prizes while learning alongside the local Hampton Roads AI community. Prizes will recognize teams that bring strong ideas, practical solutions, creativity, and clear impact to the AI for Learning & Development space.

Get started
The first thing you should do is register through Devpost before the June 4th Kickoff.

You can work individually or in teams, but registration is important because space is limited. Then plan to come out to the Kickoff event to discover the problem statement and receive inspiration and development guidance from our AI Collective experts.

If you're unable to attend the in-person Kickoff, that's okay because we'll share a recording after the event with those who pre-register.

This is a beginner-friendly event. If you're never participated in a build challenge or hackathon, this is your opportunity! The Kickoff will include some initial guidance regarding topics and tools, and we'll make additional online resources available during the two week build phase.

Requirements

What to build
You'll build a project that uses AI to enhance learning and development (with more details unveiled at the Kickoff event). Projects will be evaluated on potential impact, not technical complexity.

What to submit

Prior to the in-person Presentations & Judging event, please submit the following in Devpost:

• Project Overview (e.g., PDF one-sheet, slidedeck, etc.)
• Code Repository (e.g., Github) and/or Project Link (e.g. website)

At the Presentations & Judging event, please prepare for the following:

• 3-5 minute presentation and/or demo
• 2-3 minute Q&A with judges
• In-person delivery (at least one team member in attendance)

Judging Criteria

• Impact and Relevance
  Does the solution address a real learning or development need? How meaningful is the potential impact on learners, educators, or organizations?
• Innovation & Creativity
  How original is the approach? Does the team use AI in a novel or surprising way to solve the problem?
• Functionality & Demo
  Does the solution work as demonstrated? Is the core concept functional, even if not fully polished?
• User Experience
  Is the solution intuitive and accessible? Would the target user actually want to use it?
• Presentation Quality
  Is the team’s pitch clear, compelling, and well-structured? Do they effectively communicate the problem, solution, and value?