National AI Strategy Sprint
A live cohort that turns the CentPol nine-pillar framework into a decision-ready national AI strategy — context-first, execution-focused, and built for rule-makers rather than rule-takers.
What you will be able to do more clearly
Decode any national AI strategy into its building blocks and spot the missing pieces, design an implementable one that accounts for compute, data, institutions, labor, and geopolitics — not just R&D and ethics — and leave with a two-page strategy memo and three-minute pitch built for real decision-makers.
- Level
- Applied
- Lessons
- 6
- Format
- 5 weeks + optional deep dive
- Access
- Facilitated cohort
Government officials and advisers, think tanks and international organizations, industry and compute-ecosystem policy teams, academics, civil society, and AI safety, ethics, and governance practitioners — especially across Africa and the Global South.
6 lessons, in order
A deliberate sequence — each lesson answers a real problem and sets up the next. Lesson 1 is free to preview; the rest unlock when you enroll.
- 11. The Landscape — Vision and the Why-NowBuild a national AI vision that survives a skeptic — grounded in evidence, sharpened by the cost of waiting, and honest about whether your country writes the rules or inherits them.Free preview45–60 min
- 2. The Architecture — Learning the 9-Pillar MapLearn the nine load-bearing pillars of every serious AI strategy — and read real strategies comparatively, so you can tell a deliberate omission from a genuine gap.45–60 min
- 3. Constraints, Leapfrogging, and Realistic BudgetsPractice strategy under real limits — power, compute, talent, donor dependence, political time — by finding the one binding constraint and sequencing everything else around it.45–60 min
- 4. The Engines — Compute, Data, and InstitutionsUntangle the three levers weak strategies muddle — compute, data, and institutions — and design each realistically, ending with a minimum viable institution that can actually run the strategy.45–60 min
- 5. Application — Sectors, Society, and International StanceMake the three hard choices strategy exists to make — priority sectors with Year-1 use cases, a labor mitigation for each, and a deliberate international posture with red lines you will not concede.45–60 min
- 6. Synthesis — Metrics, Iteration, and the Strategy MemoTurn five weeks of work into a decision-ready two-page memo and a three-minute pitch — built on a handful of behavior-driving metrics with real pivot points, not vanity counts.45–60 min
What should stay with you
Not short-term inspiration — a stronger way to interpret, reason, govern, anticipate, and act.
- Use the nine-pillar framework to analyze and compare national or organizational AI strategies.
- Distinguish compute and data as separate strategic levers and design policy tools for each.
- Identify and justify priority sectors and matching public-sector transformation plans.
- Propose realistic institutional arrangements for implementation, coordination, and oversight.
- Articulate an international posture aligned with global frameworks and geopolitical realities.
- Embed labor-market, inclusion, and societal impacts into strategy rather than as afterthoughts.
- Define metrics and review cycles that keep a strategy adaptive rather than static.
- Communicate all of it in a short, persuasive memo and spoken briefing for senior decision-makers.
Built for individuals, cohorts, and institutions
Use the course as a guided reading experience, a facilitated cohort, an internal training program, or a partner academy module.
The 9-pillar framework
A reusable diagnostic you point at any strategy to find what is strong, hollow, or silent.
Curated reading library
Anchor readings plus high-value additions, mapped to the pillar each one informs.
Weekly live sessions
Sixty-minute cohort discussion, mapping clinics, and peer review every week.
Memo + pitch clinic
A workshop and rubric to turn five weeks of work into a decision-ready memo and pitch.
Where this course leads next
Deepen the work through another program, apply it with your team, or move toward a fellowship or public contribution.
Trust, Risk & Governance in Agentic Systems
Go deeper on the safety, oversight, and accountability machinery a strategy has to stand up.
Partner on a cohort
Bring the sprint to a ministry, policy unit, or regional bloc as a tailored cohort.
Ready to start National AI Strategy?
Read lesson 1 free, then register interest to join the next facilitated cohort and unlock all 6 lessons.