The Dallas-based Mark Cuban Foundation is launching its first program designed for adult learners with a pilot at Dallas College Aug. 17-21. The Agentic AI Academy is a free five-day accelerator operated in partnership with New York City-based worker advocacy nonprofit Lift Our Voices.
Since 2019, the Mark Cuban Foundation’s AI education has been delivered through its AI Bootcamp for high school students. The Agentic AI Academy expands that mission to community college students, no technical background required. The pilot targets learners in the trades and other communities that often have less access to AI training, the foundation said.
Learning to use agentic AI to achieve goals
The hands-on program offers half-day sessions, each built around a specific result students can apply directly to their work. By the end of the program, every participant will have built a set of working AI agents tailored to their own work.
Throughout the week, participants learn to build and use AI agents for tasks tied directly to the workplace, including an agent that serves as a personal career coach to help students develop a roadmap for achieving their goals.
For the Mark Cuban Foundation, the community college pilot represents a first step toward broader adult programming.
“Community colleges are in every region across the country, often in places that are not served by other educational institutions,” said Charlotte Dungan, chief learning officer at the Mark Cuban Foundation, in a statement. “By bringing Agentic AI to small business owners, community members and students who are entering or re-entering the workforce, we can expand who is empowered to use Agentic AI.”
Helping inform and empower young workers
Lift Our Voices (LOV) developed one of the tools students will use during the week. The LOV Where You Work AI tool offers free, anonymous and multilingual evaluations of employment contracts and onboarding paperwork. It looks for hidden nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) and forced arbitration clauses that can silence employees if they experience bad behavior in the workplace. Students will test the tool on a sample contract, then model how each party might respond to what it uncovers.
Lift Our Voices said that the partnership with the Mark Cuban Foundation highlights their shared goal of helping young workers understand the fine print of contracts and agreements before they sign.
Lift Our Voices co-founders Gretchen Carlson and Julie Roginsky said that they were excited to partner with the Mark Cuban Foundation to help workers begin their first jobs informed and empowered.
“Young people entering the workforce deserve to know what’s in their employment contracts before they sign away their rights. But clauses around NDAs and forced arbitration are often overly complex and buried deep in contracts,” Carlson said. “Our free LOV Where You Work AI Tool helps close that gap by identifying how these silencing mechanisms show up in contracts and translating the legal terminology into plain language.”
Roginsky said that Gen Z is unwilling to put up with toxic workplaces and expects “transparency and a healthy workplace culture.”
“The LOV Where You Work AI Tool gives them another way to evaluate a company and hold employers accountable,” she said. “Just as job applicants ask about salary and healthcare benefits, our tool can help them ask informed questions about a company’s use of silencing mechanisms.”
Don’t miss what’s next. Subscribe to Dallas Innovates.
Track Dallas-Fort Worth’s business and innovation landscape with our curated news in your inbox Tuesday-Thursday.
R E A D N E X T
-
North Texas has plenty to see, hear, and watch. Here are our editors' picks. Plus, you'll find more selections to "save the date."
-
Teladoc co-founder Michael Gorton wants people to be able to watch their favorite book. His latest startup turns novels into cinematic, episodic video—a "fourth book format" after print, ebook, and audiobook. It begins streaming its first title July 14, backed by a $2 million raise and an Emmy-winning "Band of Brothers" producer who's relocating to Dallas.
-
Bottle Rocket founder and serial entrepreneur Calvin Carter and AI programmer-turned-medical-doctor Alex Sheppert developed Matic's agentic AI to take care of the busywork—"so physicians can focus on the patient and practices can optimize care."
-
As the publication marks its 10th anniversary, the Dallas Regional Chamber is expanding its role in Dallas Innovates, and Lawley Head Media assumes leadership of newsroom and editorial operations.
-
In a “defining moment for Dallas College.," the planned next-gen transformation of the historic El Centro campus along downtown Dallas' Austin Street corridor "allows for a bold vision linking culture, commerce, transit, and education in one place," Dallas College said.
-
After seven years in Houston, the Pepsi National Battle of the Bands showcase is relocating to Arlington’s AT&T Stadium. Organizers say the move reflects the region’s growing pull for cultural and sports programming and a chance to put HBCU marching bands’ artistry, scholarship funding and decades of tradition in front of the region’s business and alumni networks.
-
Researcher Habeeb Olufowobi will lead a project to build a safety layer to ‘help scientists confidently use AI in some of the world’s most advanced research facilities.’ It is one of 278 projects in a new federal effort.
-
Because of the explosion in the use of artificial intelligence throughout society, the legal industry is undergoing seismic change, and the profession needs ways to build the judgment, confidence, and fluency to use AI effectively, BARBRI said.
-
By using a vaccine and gene editing, the partners aim to fight a lethal cancer that has reduced the wild population of Tasmanian devils by 80% since the 1990s.
-
“Dallas is a city on the rise—a magnet for capital, talent, and ideas," Luisa del Rosal said. "I look forward to working with the board, our members, and partners to amplify ECD’s role as a premier forum for the conversations that will define our economic future."
