Beginner AI App-building Workshop (repeated)

Overview

This workshop will walk you through how to use Google Suite as a functional backend to build out a very simple web application. The app will comb through your email and use OpenAI's APIs to write you a summary of the content included in all your emails each day. If you are absolutely new to writing code in any capacity, it is best to approach attending any workshop that aims to give you a functional product at the end in the same way that you'd approach reading a science fiction novel: be prepared both to suspend disbelief and to tolerate the world build.

Suspending disbelief means that you will need to accept as fact some things that feel arbitrary or unnecessarily complex. There are reasons for why those things are the way they are, but for the sake of making progress through the workshop, they will not be fully explained. (That said, if we generate demand to have a beginner's scripting class to learn about data types and basic computer science concepts in more depth as a followup, we can!)

Conversely, tolerating the world build means that you will need to bear with slower action for the sake of developing an understanding of the building blocks of the app before we can put the app together.

Agenda

The workshop will consist of six parts: 

1. We'll start by going over the architecture of the app and why the pieces are what they are. 

2. We'll then go through some basics of scripting languages, including significant differences of those involved in our app.

3. We'll handle the back-end part of the app, where things are stored and referenced. 

4. We'll handle the email integration part of the app, allowing what we build to reference our email. 

5. We'll connect our web app to the AI API, including what we pass and how we collect the results into summaries. 

6. We'll talk about next steps, how to tweak the app, and what will be useful to the community as a next step.

We'll take a few short breaks throughout the workshop, and we'll take one longer break around 2:30-3:00PM CDT through during which people can relax or else work on coding and experimenting. 

About the Instructor

Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs' own Alec Walker will run the workshop. He runs workshops professionally for firms from Sheraton to Intel to Swarovski to the American Association for Petroleum Geologists. He's also founded and exited multiple AI startups and has helped many firms set up corporate venture capital arms and run corporate innovation and internal startup incubators. He loves teaching.

Limitations and Cost

SA&E has decided to limit this workshop to 30 participants and to charge each participant a nominal fee. We've made this decision for three reasons. First, we want the workshop to be live and in a small batch for higher quality. This way, when people have questions, they can just speak right up without running the risk of derailing others. In addition, we want people to feel invested in the workshop, so they're sure to show up and bring attention and energy. Finally, we like the idea of the proceeds going to support Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, which is entirely volunteer run and spends its money solely on helping startups. If the workshop is successful, we'll expand.