AI Startup Essentials: Build Your First Prototype

[Note: This workshop is cross-listed in Vibe Code AI for Absolute Beginners]

This is the first in a new series of workshops designed to help you develop the skillsets of an AI Leader —whether you are a startup founder, a CEO, or a business unit team lead.

We’ll use a hypothetical “practice startup” called HealthyMeals AI as our vehicle. Imagine you are building a company that uses AI to develop healthy meal plans as a base product. Across this series, we will start with a simple prototype, then progressively refine, improve, and evolve it toward a minimum viable product (MVP). In parallel, you can frame and work through your own product ideas while practicing with this shared example.

In this first workshop, you’ll learn the foundations of context engineering how to define the purpose, users, data, and behavior of an AI system before you write a single line of code. Using a set of lightweight design documents, you’ll build your initial AI prototype using Agentic AI tools.

In future workshops, we’ll continue to refine HealthyMeals AI by improving functionality, experimenting with user experience, exploring cloud deployment, and connecting technical development to a real business case. The practice startup will grow in sophistication, giving you a structured path to learn the end-to-end process of building with AI.

🧭 What We’ll Cover

- Why context engineering matters for AI leadership
- The four key documents every AI project should start with
- How those documents guide development choices
- How to use Agentic AI tools to help build the app from prototype to MVP
- A guided build of a simple prototype (HealthyMeals AI)

📘 What We’ll Learn

- How to define purpose and scope with a Product Requirements Document (PRD)
- How to describe user interactions through UX guidelines
- How to capture technical assumptions in a simple technical context doc
- How to plan development in phases with a project roadmap
- How documents directly shape AI behavior from the start
- How to leverage Agentic AI tools to accelerate building and refining your app toward MVP

👥 Who Should Attend

This session is for students, builders, and leaders who want to practice AI development in a structured way. No prior coding or context engineering experience is required.

All materials, including code and templates, will be provided.