Level 1 · Foundation
AI at Work — The Productive Professional
Get past the chatbot demo. Pick the right tool, write prompts that actually work, and leave with routines you'll use this week.
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Workshop17 · V&A Waterfront, Cape Town · In-person & always live · max 13 seats
AI training that changes what you can get done.
AI — taught by real people, with real people, in a real room.
Three modular one-day courses for working professionals — become more productive, build automations that scale your output, or lead an AI-shaped team. The outcome is the point; AI is just the tool that gets you there. Choose your path, your approach and your dates.
50% hands-on. Always live with an experienced trainer — never recorded. Industry guest speakers. Every course counts toward the Proven Path Professional Certificate. In person at Workshop17, V&A Waterfront — max 13 seats in the room (selected dates at Workshop17 Century City). Occasional quarterly Saturday dates. Book early, pay less — prices rise as each date nears.
50%Hands-on time
13Max participants per class
LiveAlways, never recorded
3→1Levels, one certificate
Choose your path
Three modular levels. You pick where you start.
Each course is a standalone one-day level — take one, or stack them in any order that fits you. Foundation to become a more productive professional, Practitioner to build automations and agents, Leadership to run an AI-shaped team. Complete all three to earn the Proven Path Professional Certificate. Choose your path, your approach and your dates.
Level 2 · Practitioner
AI at Scale — The Automation Builder
Turn effort into leverage. Build the automations and agents that scale your output, and ship something that keeps working after the day ends.
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Level 3 · Leadership
AI at the Top — The Strategic Leader
Decide it, cost it, govern it, lead it. Walk out with a scored and costed AI portfolio, your own AI policy and readiness score, and a 90-day plan for your team.
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Your credential path
Three certified levels. One professional certificate.
Each level ends with a knowledge check (70% to pass) and its own Proven Path certificate, issued by an accredited CPD provider. Take them in any order — complete all three and you hold the Proven Path Professional Certificate.
- Level 1 · FoundationAI at WorkCertified: the Productive Professional — you use AI well, safely, every day.
- Level 2 · PractitionerAI at ScaleCertified: the Automation Builder — you build agents and workflows others rely on.
- Level 3 · LeadershipAI at the TopCertified: the Strategic Leader — you decide, govern and lead the change.
- All three levelsProven Path Professional CertificateProof you can use it, build with it and lead it.
Private classes & other locations: classes can be arranged privately for your team, at your offices or another venue — contact
info@proven-path-academy.com to discuss details.
International participants & non-Rand payments are welcome — contact us and we'll send specific instructions for invoicing in your currency.
What you leave with
You leave with work, not a login.
Every course ends with named, working artefacts — built by you, on real tasks, in the room. Things you use the following week, and that your manager can actually see.
AI at Work
Level 1 · Foundation
- Three working workflows, built on your own workplace tasks
- The four-ingredient prompt model — Goal, Inputs, Constraints, Examples
- A tool decision tree — which AI to use when
- A POPIA-aware way of working — what goes in, what stays out
- A printed A4 cheat sheet
- Your personal 30-day plan
- A Proven Path certificate (Level 1)
AI at Scale
Level 2 · Practitioner
- A reusable agent — a weekly KPI digest that runs on fresh inputs
- A workflow with a human approval gate
- A live link from your agent to real data
- A stress-tested, production-aware version of your build
- A laminated reference card — agent and workflow anatomy, production checks
- A Proven Path certificate (Level 2)
AI at the Top
Level 3 · Leadership
- A scored and costed AI portfolio — Fund / Pilot / Park / Kill
- Your AI governance pack — readiness score, one-page AI policy, CoE shape, sovereignty call
- A 90-day change plan and weekly comms calendar
- A triple-impact scorecard with owners and thresholds
- Three laminated A4 cards — reference, OKR template, 90-day plan
- A Proven Path certificate (Level 3)
Why Proven Path
AI — by real people, with real people.
AI is the subject. People are the method. Here's plainly what we are, and what we're not.
Proven Path is
- A real trainer in a real room — live, in person, never recorded
- Hands-on: half of every day is spent building
- Outcome-led: you leave with named artefacts you keep using
- Paid once, per course — no subscription, ever
- Tool-neutral: Claude, Copilot, Gemini, Notion, NotebookLM — the right tool for the job
- Small by design: a maximum of 13 seats in the room
Proven Path is not
- A video library you'll “get round to” one day
- A chatbot tutor bolted onto slides
- A monthly membership that renews whether you learn or not
- A catalogue of courses your company licenses and nobody finishes
- A certificate for clicking “next”
- A webinar with 300 muted cameras
Real people, all day
You learn from the trainer who designed the course and has run real operations — next to peers who push back, and a guest practitioner who has shipped AI inside a real organisation. Judgement, context and honest answers are the part of AI a machine can't teach you.
Pay once. Keep everything.
One price per course, paid once. No membership, no auto-renewal, no seat licence that quietly bills you or your company every month. The cheat sheets, cards, plans and builds are yours to keep. Book early and it costs less.
For companies: buy outcomes, not a catalogue
A catalogue licence buys access — a library and a dashboard of logins — and months later nobody can say what changed. Send people to Proven Path and they come back with working artefacts built on your work: workflows, agents, a policy, a 90-day plan. Ask them to show you on Monday. Private classes for your team →
How you'll learn
A small room, real exercises, an experienced trainer.
Every Proven Path course follows the same shape. Less talking, more doing. The structure stays steady; the content moves with the tools.
01
Pragmatic by design
Every concept is paired with a real workplace use case. No theory for theory's sake.
02
50% hands-on
Half the day is exercises. You can also use your own work — bring a real problem and the room will help you solve it. Optional, never required.
03
One experienced trainer
You're in the room with the person who designed the course. No teaching assistants. Every question gets answered.
04
Knowledge checks
A short test at the end of each course confirms what stuck. Pass it and you walk away with a Proven Path certificate.
05
Guest speakers
Industry leaders drop in for short, candid sessions on what worked, what didn't, and what they'd do differently.
06
In the room & always live
Every session is live with the trainer at Workshop17, V&A Waterfront (selected dates at Workshop17 Century City) — never recorded — with a maximum of 13 seats in the room and occasional quarterly Saturday dates. If a last-minute emergency stops you getting there, we can usually arrange for you to join that session online. Specific online delivery can also be arranged, but must be discussed first.
07
Limited participation
Every cohort is deliberately small. Past a certain size the room loses its texture and you stop getting the trainer's full attention.
08
Reward for booking early
Prices step up as each date nears: an early-commit price 6 weeks out, up at 4 weeks, then the standard price 2 weeks before. No hidden costs — book early, pay less.
How we teach
Built on how adults actually learn.
The day isn't improvised. Every course is designed on proven adult-learning principles — so what you do in the room is still with you a month later.
Scaffolding
Show → try → own
The trainer demonstrates, you try it with help, then you do it alone — ideally on a real task of your own. Support comes off as your confidence goes up.
Authentic practice
A real case, then your world
You practise on a realistic business case, then transfer it to your own role and organisation. Nothing is a toy exercise.
Socratic facilitation
Questions before answers
The trainer asks before telling. The room reasons it out together — which is why people remember the answer.
Retrieval practice
Recall, not re-reading
A knowledge check at the end of every course makes you pull the ideas back out of memory — one of the most reliable ways to make them stick.
Spaced practice
The learning continues after 16h00
AI at Work ends with a 30-day plan and AI at the Top with a 90-day plan, spacing practice over the weeks that follow — so the day becomes a habit, not a memory. AI at Scale sends you home with a build that runs every week.
Bloom's progression
Levels that climb
Level 1 you use and apply. Level 2 you build and create. Level 3 you evaluate, decide and lead. Each level asks more of you than the one before.
In the room
A real classroom, not a webinar.
A glimpse of how a Proven Path day looks — small group, laptops open, post-its on the wall, coffee that gets cold because nobody's checking their phone. Everyone brings their own laptop.
Real moments from our sessions at Workshop17, V&A Waterfront — starting with our first class of 2026.
What past students say
"It changed the way I work — not just the way I think about AI."
I came in expecting to nod through some slides about AI. By 11 in the morning I had built a thing that wrote my weekly status update. By the end of the day it was triggered automatically. Best training day I've had in years.Thandi M.Operations Manager · Logistics, Cape Town
Geoff doesn't sell anything. He explains, he demonstrates, and then he gets out of your way and watches you build. The room asks better questions because he doesn't pretend to have all the answers.James de V.Founder · B2B SaaS, Stellenbosch
I sent four people to the AI at Scale course. Three months later, our weekly reporting cycle is two days shorter. The investment paid for itself before the next quarter.Lerato K.Head of People · Financial Services, Johannesburg
The OKR day was the first time my exec team agreed on what "done" looks like. We left with one Objective, three Key Results, and — finally — the same definition of progress.Mark P.COO · Healthcare scale-up, Cape Town
Ten in the room is the right call. I asked questions I would have been too shy to ask in a 50-person room. By coffee I'd already paired up with another founder who was solving the same problem.Aisha P.Consultant · Independent, Durban
I'm in my fifties. I hadn't touched AI before this. I left at 15:00 with three working agents and the confidence to talk about it in our exec meeting on Wednesday. Worth every cent.Pieter v.d.M.CFO · Manufacturing, Paarl
Verbatim quotes from our June 2026 sessions — shared with permission; some names abbreviated for privacy.
Who you'll learn from
Your trainer — and a guest you'll meet on the day.
Geoff Lousse
Founder & Lead Trainer · Proven Path AcademyGeoff has spent two decades in operating roles — building, scaling and turning around teams across South Africa, the UK and the US. He has set OKRs in start-ups of 12 and divisions of 1,200, and seen every variant of how they fall apart. He holds an MBA from HEC Paris and teaches operational-efficiency classes at SKEMA Business School in France. He runs Proven Path Academy out of Cape Town. The format is deliberate: small rooms, real work, no slides about slides.
He built Proven Path Academy because the AI training market is full of theatre and short on practice. His promise is simple: every course is 50% hands-on, every group is capped, and every student leaves with a practical solution they will use the following week.
Surprise guest
Secret guest speaker
Every session gets one industry leader dropping in for a candid 15-minute session. We don't announce them in advance — we want the conversation, not the LinkedIn buzz. Each guest is a working practitioner who has shipped AI or OKRs inside a real organisation, with the scars to prove it.
How guest speakers fit in
A guest joins for the last 15 minutes of the day for a Q&A about real-world implementation. They share what worked, what didn't, and what they'd do differently. No slides, no sales pitch — just a conversation.
- Real numbers, real mistakes, real lessons
- Ask any question — Chatham House rules
- Optional: stay on for a drink at the venue afterwards
Not sure yet?
Book a free 15-minute call.
A short, no-strings call with Geoff. Tell him what you're trying to do and which of your weeks you'd like to spend less time on. He'll point you at the right course — or not, if there isn't one.
No date that fits? Get new dates by email.
Only new course dates — no newsletter, unsubscribe anytime.
FAQs
The five questions we get most often.
Honest, direct answers. The full FAQ page covers another ~20 questions about bookings, format, content, in-house and POPIA.
Are courses in-person or online?
In person — every class runs live in the room at Workshop17, V&A Waterfront (selected dates, like the November 3-day Masterclass, at Workshop17 Century City), and is never recorded. If a last-minute emergency stops you getting there, we can usually arrange for you to join that session online. Specific online delivery can also be arranged, but must be discussed first — email info@proven-path-academy.com. Occasional quarterly Saturday dates too.
How many seats per cohort?
Deliberately limited: a maximum of 13 seats in the room. The class stays small enough that every question gets answered — when the 13 seats are gone, it shows sold out.
What if my plans change?
No problem — your booking is flexible: move your seat to any future session free with 15+ days' notice, or send a colleague in your place (free up to 7 days before). Bookings aren't refundable in cash. Full details in our Refund Policy.
Do I need to know how to code?
No. None of the courses require coding. We work in free or licensed AI tools (Claude, Copilot, Gemini, Notion, NotebookLM) using their visual interfaces.
Will I get a certificate?
Yes — a Proven Path Academy certificate of completion, issued at the end of the session, after a multiple-choice knowledge check. The pass mark is 70%: 7 out of 10 on AI at Work and AI at Scale, 9 out of 13 on AI at the Top.
Can we book a private class?
Yes — classes can be arranged privately for your team, at your offices or another location you choose, and deeper build work is available through Proven Path Strategy. Case study optionally swapped for your real context. Email info@proven-path-academy.com to discuss details.
Contact
The fastest way to reach us.
One person reads every email. Replies within one working day.
For all course enquiries, in-house quotes, invoicing and corrections to your booking.
Address
Workshop17 · Watershed Building
17 Dock Road · V&A Waterfront
Cape Town 8001 · South Africa
Public cohorts run at this venue, except dates marked Century City: Workshop17 Century City, Building 3, Junxion Park, 10 Elephant Lane (map). In-house and corporate bookings run at your office on request.
Company
Proven Path Academy is a trading name of LCSI Pty Ltd — a private company registered in the Republic of South Africa. We are an accredited CPD provider with the SA CPD Body — provider #50502026/0024, verifiable at register.sacpdbody.org.za.
For tax invoices, VAT or company registration details, email us with your VAT number.