Applied AI Bootcamp · November 2026

Applied AI for HR professionals

An eight-Saturday course in Colombo on working with AI, from setting up the tools to writing the policy for how your organisation uses them.

  • 8 Saturdays
  • 32 Live hours
  • 7 Capstone builds
People. Policy. Progress.
A BuildrLabs Lego professional ready for the working week
Next cohort
November 2026
Saturdays, 2pm to 6pm
Where
Hatch Works, Colombo
In person, Week 7 online
Fee
LKR 65,000
Instalment plan available

Excl. VAT & SSCL

Seats
15 seats
Allocated on a first-paid basis
Sound familiar?

The problems this is meant to help with.

None of this is about how well HR is run where you work. It is about having time to learn these tools properly and work out how employee data should be handled, before those decisions get made somewhere else.

Someone on the leadership team has asked what the company policy on AI is, and there is not one yet.

Other departments are already using AI tools, and the questions about whether they should come to you.

You are reading through hundreds of applications, and a growing number of them were written with AI rather than by the candidate.

Every new hire needs the same documents prepared and the same accounts set up, and someone does that by hand each time.

Staff email you questions about leave, policy and benefits that are already answered in the handbook.

By the end

What you will be able to do.

Every session produces something you keep. These are the things every participant leaves with.

Practical AI fluency

Text, voice, image and code. In a people function that mostly means documents, written communication and recorded conversations.

A personal AI stack

Claude Code, Obsidian, Wispr Flow and Motion set up around your own work, plus access to a library of more than 1,000 AI tools across 40 categories.

A way of judging new tools

You are usually the person asked to approve the tools other departments want. You learn how to assess one before that request arrives.

Seven things you built

Including an assistant trained on your handbook and policies, and a written AI usage policy for your organisation.

A full day on your own function

Week 6 goes deeper on the work closest to what you do, with someone who does that work using these tools.

A 90-day plan

A written plan for the three months after the course, reviewed by the rest of the group.

Access to HatchX

A private network connecting BuildrLabs graduates with companies, founders and professionals across the Hatch group.

The tool library

1,000+ tools. 40+ categories.

Graduates keep access, maintained and updated continuously.

Explore the library
The eight Saturdays

What each Saturday covers.

Every session produces something you keep. Seven Saturdays run in person at Hatch Works; Week 7 is an online build day.

  1. Week 1

    Foundations, Mindset, and Your Personal AI Stack

    What you build

    Claude Code, Obsidian, Wispr Flow and Motion, set up and working by the end of the day

    What it covers

    Four modules. One is a review of your own working week, which for most HR people shows how much time goes on answering questions that are already documented somewhere.

  2. Week 2

    Multimodal AI and Custom Assistants

    What you build

    An assistant trained on your company documents, which you can ask questions

    What it covers

    Your handbook, policies and procedures become searchable, so colleagues can ask them directly rather than emailing you.

  3. Week 3

    Creativity

    What you build

    A 60-second video advert with script, voiceover, visuals and music

    What it covers

    Image, video, audio and voice generation using Midjourney, Ideogram, Runway, ElevenLabs and Suno.

  4. Week 4

    Automation, Agents, and Apps

    What you build

    A working web application on a public address

    What it covers

    Three modules covering automation in Zapier and Make, agents that run without supervision, and building an application. Email triage and document routing sit here, with an AI support agent as one of the worked examples.

  5. Week 5

    Ethics and Your 90-Day Roadmap

    What you build

    A 90-day plan and a written AI usage policy for your team

    What it covers

    What data can and cannot go into a tool, how to work securely, bias and accountability, and how GDPR, the AI Act and industry rules apply.

  6. Week 6

    Domain Track Deep-Dive

    What you build

    An assistant that answers a real question from a colleague, and an automation your team would use

    What it covers

    A full day going deeper on the work closest to your own. You work out where AI would help most in your role, build an assistant on your own documents, then build an automation and test it against real data.

  7. Week 7

    Hackathon Build (online)

    What you build

    Your assistant, automation and application combined into one thing

    What it covers

    A full day of building with facilitators available, plus a rehearsal of your demo.

  8. Week 8

    Hackathon and Demo Day

    What you build

    Your finished project, presented

    What it covers

    You demonstrate what you built to the rest of the group, get feedback, and receive your certificate.

One cohort. Every function.

You will not be in a room of people just like you.

The November 2026 cohort brings marketers, sales leads, finance teams, HR heads and business owners into the same room at Hatch Works. For five Saturdays you build alongside people who do different jobs to you, so you see how finance automates month end while someone else automates a campaign.

  • Weeks 1 to 5 Everyone together, on the same tools
  • Week 6 Split into your own function’s track
  • Week 8 Back together for Demo Day, every function presenting
12 of 15 seats left 15 seats shared across every function, given to whoever pays first.
What you do not need
  • A technical or engineering background
  • Any previous experience with AI tools
  • The ability to write code
  • An existing AI policy. Writing one is part of Week 5.

If you use a laptop for work, you are qualified.

November 2026 cohort
LKR 65,000

Excl. VAT & SSCL

Eight Saturdays at Hatch Works, Colombo, every session, materials, tool access and your certificate. An instalment plan is available: ask us and we confirm it in writing before you pay.

Who teaches it

People who do the work for a living.

Everyone teaching on this course does the work for a living. The group includes brand, digital and transformation leads from Dialog Axiata, MAS KREEDA, John Keells Group and Wavenet, along with founders and heads of AI. In Week 6 you go deeper on your own function, with someone who works in it.

Ammar Ahamed

Ammar Ahamed

Head of Growth
BuildrLabs and Vector Agents
Isuru Alagiyawanna

Isuru Alagiyawanna

Head of Curriculum, BuildrLabs
Head of AI Engineering, Veracity
Dr Sithira Ambepitiya

Dr Sithira Ambepitiya

Head of AI, AIGP
MBBS turned AI Lead
Lishan Peiris

Lishan Peiris

Assistant Manager, Brand · Wavenet
Lecturer, AMDT
Mevan Liyanage

Mevan Liyanage

Senior Technology Consultant, Evensys
Power Platform, RPA & Copilot Studio AI agents
Abubakker Bakthathi

Abubakker Bakthathi

Founder & CEO, Paralox Media
AI solutions, consulting & training for brands
Dilusha Perera

Dilusha Perera

Lead Digital Evangelist
MAS KREEDA
Hasara Munasinghe

Hasara Munasinghe

Lead Project Manager
Octave, John Keells Group
Sudeshi Jayasuriya

Sudeshi Jayasuriya

Founder, Mira AI
Former Director of HR, Boardpac
Kavindu Eshara

Kavindu Eshara

CEO & Founder
ABSOLX CORE AI
Naseef Athaur Rahman

Naseef Athaur Rahman

Founder, Cravix
Exited
Faahika Fakir

Faahika Fakir

Head of Operations
Oceans

More trainers join each cohort as new domain tracks open.

Learn from them. Enrol now
Common questions

What people ask us first.

Is it safe to put employee data into AI tools?

Not without conditions you set first. Week 5 covers what should and should not be shared with a tool, how to work securely inside a company, and how GDPR, the AI Act and industry rules apply. You finish that session with a written usage policy for your own organisation.

How is AI used in HR?

Mainly for work involving documents and written communication: answering routine questions from staff, preparing onboarding paperwork, drafting job descriptions and review documentation, reading and sorting applications, and putting together learning plans. Most AI for HR work sits in that layer rather than in decisions about people.

Can AI be used for recruitment and screening?

Yes, and the Human Resources track in Week 6 covers it. The course treats screening as something AI assists with rather than decides, which matters both for fairness and because a candidate pool now includes applications written with AI.

Could using AI in hiring create bias problems?

It can, which is why bias and accountability are taught in Week 5 alongside the compliance frameworks rather than left as a warning. The course is built on keeping decisions about people with people.

What AI tools do HR teams use?

The four you set up in Week 1 and use throughout are Claude Code, Obsidian, Wispr Flow and Motion. Alongside those you work with Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini for text, and Zapier, Make and n8n for automation.

I am not technical. Is this course realistic for me?

Yes. There is no prerequisite. Where something needs code, Claude Code writes it while you tell it what you want, and by the end of Week 1 your four main tools are set up and working.

How do I take this back to a team that has not been trained?

Week 5 produces a 90-day plan and a written AI usage policy. Both are reviewed by the rest of the group before you leave with them, and both are meant for rolling this out rather than for your own development.

Can I bring real work to the sessions?

Bring whatever you are comfortable bringing. Week 5 covers the boundaries in detail, and everything you build will work on sample or anonymised material.

Applications for the November 2026 course are open.

The course runs for eight Saturdays at Hatch Works, Colombo, starting in November 2026. It costs LKR 65,000 (excl. VAT and SSCL), and there is an instalment plan. There are 15 places, given to whoever pays first.