Creating Effective Curriculum for QEDC

Client: Queens Economic Development Corporation (QEDC)
Project: AI Adoption for Entrepreneurs - 8-Week Accelerator Program

The Challenge

QEDC approached with a critical workforce development need: their entrepreneurial community (primarily over-35 founders juggling side hustles in professional services, crafts, and food businesses) were falling behind in the AI revolution. The challenge was multi-layered:

• Knowledge Gap: Most participants were non-technical, intimidated by AI tools, and didn't know where to start despite knowing they "should" use AI.

• Time Poverty: These founders were already overwhelmed with daily operations, working solo or with minimal support. Traditional training would add to their burden rather than relieve it.

• Behavior Change at Scale: QEDC needed more than information transfer—they needed lasting behavior change across 30+ diverse businesses, with participants able to demonstrate real ROI from AI adoption.

The deeper challenge: how to move founders from "AI sounds interesting" to "AI is integrated into my weekly workflow and saving me money" in just 8 weeks, entirely online.

The Solution

Jai designed and taught a pedagogically rigorous accelerator that functioned as both a skills incubator and a business transformation lab. Rather than teaching AI tools in isolation, he created an operating system for AI adoption.

• Learn-by-Doing Architecture: Using Bloom's Taxonomy and Gagné's Nine Events of Instruction, each 2-hour session moved participants through analysis, application, and evaluation—not just understanding. Participants left every session with a completed artifact: a business model canvas, a workflow automation, a content calendar, or a functional website built with AI tools.

• Real-Time Problem Solving: Each session included live "Prompt Clinic" moments where Jai worked through actual participant challenges on screen—from Milton's 40-year print shop needing email automation to Samina's acupuncture clinic expansion strategy. This created a library of reusable patterns while making abstract concepts immediately concrete.

• Pedagogical Scaffolding for Sustainability: The course wasn't about memorizing prompts—it was about building mental models. Jai introduced frameworks like the "Signal Stack" (Persona, Task, Context, Format) and concepts like "distributed cognition" and "ugly first drafts" that gave founders reusable thinking tools beyond any single AI platform.

The Results

The 8-week program transformed not just skills but mindsets, creating a cohort of AI-native entrepreneurs who could outcompete larger, better-funded competitors.

• Measurable Skill Acquisition: 100% of participants who completed the course successfully created AI-powered business artifacts (websites, automation workflows, go-to-market strategies) that would have previously required hiring contractors or developers.

• Validated Business Impact: Participants like Nick (Marketito) used AI to reduce website development time from months to weeks while landing his first venue partnership. Milton (Mendez Printing) identified $11,000+ in quick-win revenue opportunities through AI-assisted customer prospecting—in a single 2-hour session.

• Sustainable Community of Practice: The course culminated in video testimonials that served dual purposes: demonstrating participant transformation while creating assets for future cohort recruitment. Multiple participants immediately signed up for the advanced "Prompt Clinic" continuation program, indicating genuine behavior change rather than one-time engagement.

"Jai has a unique gift for taking overwhelming technology and making it feel accessible and immediately useful. In our final session, I watched him take my decade-long business challenge—how to validate demand for consolidating multiple acupuncture clinics—and in 20 minutes, using AI tools I now have access to, he created a complete go-to-market strategy with specific buyer contacts and validation frameworks. I'm going to watch this class multiple times. This isn't just teaching AI tools—it's teaching how to think differently about your business."

— Samina, Course Participant & Doctor of Acupuncture