SAN­DRA L BLOOD

Just a few years ago, ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) was some­thing Kur­tis Rudd ap­proached with cau­tion. Like many in Trinidad and To­ba­go, his ear­ly im­pres­sions were shaped by warn­ings about dis­rup­tion, job loss and eth­i­cal con­cerns. To­day, how­ev­er, he stands at the fore­front of a grow­ing move­ment to make AI not on­ly ac­ces­si­ble, but prac­ti­cal and em­pow­er­ing for Caribbean pro­fes­sion­als.

“On March 25, I wrapped up teach­ing an amaz­ing two-day Vibe Cod­ing Boot­camp (VCB). It was great en­er­gy, strong en­gage­ment, but best of all, par­tic­i­pants did not sim­ply learn about tools, they lit­er­al­ly built,” Rudd said, re­flect­ing on his lat­est train­ing ini­tia­tive.

That sense of tan­gi­ble out­put—of turn­ing ideas in­to func­tion­ing dig­i­tal prod­ucts—has be­come cen­tral to his mis­sion.

Rudd’s jour­ney in­to AI be­gan around 2022, prompt­ed not by pro­fes­sion­al oblig­a­tion but by per­son­al mo­ti­va­tion. With two chil­dren grow­ing up in an in­creas­ing­ly dig­i­tal world, and en­cour­age­ment from what he de­scribes as a “sub­tly-mo­ti­vat­ing and am­bi­tious wife,” he de­cid­ed to ex­plore the tech­nol­o­gy for him­self.

His ear­ly ex­per­i­ments were mod­est—even play­ful—but they marked the be­gin­ning of a deep­er en­gage­ment. What fol­lowed was a pe­ri­od of in­tense learn­ing, ex­per­i­men­ta­tion and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­po­sure, as he sought to un­der­stand how AI could trans­form both busi­ness process­es and every­day life.

“It’s been a jour­ney of hard work and dis­cov­ery,” he said.

To­day, Rudd is the founder and lead fa­cil­i­ta­tor of Caribbean AIM, an AI man­age­ment and men­tor­ship ecosys­tem fo­cused on equip­ping in­di­vid­u­als and or­gan­i­sa­tions with prac­ti­cal, us­able knowl­edge.

Build­ing, not just learn­ing

That phi­los­o­phy was on full dis­play dur­ing the Vibe Cod­ing Boot­camp, held on March 24 and 25 in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the UWI-Roytec Caribbean AI Acad­e­my for Busi­ness, pow­ered by Caribbean AIM.

The pro­gramme tar­get­ed in­di­vid­u­als with ideas—but no cod­ing ex­pe­ri­ence—who want­ed to de­vel­op apps, web­sites, book­ing tools or sim­ple busi­ness sys­tems. Rather than fo­cus­ing on the­o­ry, the ses­sions em­pha­sised hands-on cre­ation us­ing AI-pow­ered tools.

Par­tic­i­pants were guid­ed through the process of trans­form­ing con­cepts in­to work­ing pro­to­types, of­ten with­in hours.

For Rudd, the most re­ward­ing as­pect was watch­ing that trans­for­ma­tion un­fold.

“I en­joyed see­ing what the par­tic­i­pants cre­at­ed, how quick­ly ideas took shape, and how each ver­sion im­proved as they re­fined them,” he said.

The boot­camp re­flects a broad­er shift in how tech­nol­o­gy is be­ing taught—mov­ing away from ab­stract in­struc­tion and to­wards rapid, re­sults-dri­ven learn­ing that pri­ori­tis­es us­abil­i­ty.

Rudd’s work does not stop at en­try-lev­el in­no­va­tion. In the com­ing weeks, he will ex­tend his train­ing to de­ci­sion-mak­ers, pro­fes­sion­als and every­day users seek­ing to in­te­grate AI in­to their work­flows.

Lat­er this month, a four-part se­ries ti­tled AI Foun­da­tions for Pro­fes­sion­al and Per­son­al Use (Lev­el I) will of­fer a broad­er in­tro­duc­tion. Sched­uled for April 14, 15, 21 and 22, the ses­sions aim to equip par­tic­i­pants with prac­ti­cal skills for writ­ing, re­search, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and gen­er­al prob­lem-solv­ing.

The em­pha­sis through­out re­mains con­sis­tent: AI should be un­der­stand­able, im­me­di­ate­ly use­ful, and adapt­able to re­al-world Caribbean con­texts.

A re­gion­al vi­sion

Through its part­ner­ship with UWI-Roytec, Caribbean AIM is help­ing to build what or­gan­is­ers de­scribe as a new kind of pro­fes­sion­al ca­pa­bil­i­ty in the re­gion—one ground­ed not in ex­per­i­men­ta­tion alone, but in ap­pli­ca­tion.

“There’s a dif­fer­ence be­tween ex­per­i­ment­ing with AI and build­ing re­al ca­pa­bil­i­ty,” the acad­e­my notes.

For Rudd, that dis­tinc­tion is crit­i­cal. While glob­al con­ver­sa­tions about AI of­ten fo­cus on cut­ting-edge in­no­va­tion, he be­lieves the Caribbean’s op­por­tu­ni­ty lies in prac­ti­cal adop­tion—us­ing the tech­nol­o­gy to solve every­day chal­lenges, im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy, and un­lock new forms of en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

It is a vi­sion that po­si­tions AI not as a dis­tant, dis­rup­tive force, but as a tool for em­pow­er­ment.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider Caribbean nav­i­gate an in­creas­ing­ly dig­i­tal fu­ture, ini­tia­tives like the Vibe Cod­ing Boot­camp high­light a grow­ing de­mand for ac­ces­si­ble, rel­e­vant tech ed­u­ca­tion.

Rudd’s jour­ney—from scep­tic to ad­vo­cate—mir­rors that broad­er tran­si­tion. His work un­der­scores a sim­ple but pow­er­ful idea: that with the right guid­ance, AI is not some­thing to fear, but some­thing to use. And for the par­tic­i­pants who left his class­room with work­ing apps, web­sites and sys­tems, that les­son was not the­o­ret­i­cal—it was built, test­ed and ready to grow.