Build your first app with AI in one evening
A hands-on AI workshop for any professional. Whether you use ChatGPT every day or you secretly suspect you've fallen behind.
Most people are still using AI through a chat box. Coding agents work differently. You give them a task and they go execute it. Faster, more powerful, and almost nobody outside engineering teams has tried them yet.
One evening with us is enough to flip the switch. You'll set up Claude Code, Codex, or Gemini CLI on your laptop, build a working app with us, and walk out knowing how to build whatever you want next.
Apps are the easiest way to see how it works, but the same coding agent will help you research a topic in depth, wrangle a messy spreadsheet, draft and edit documents, or automate the small repetitive tasks that eat your week.
You'll walk away with
A working to-do app you built yourself, running on your own laptop. Simple by design: small enough to finish in one evening, concrete enough to show you the whole concept. By the end you'll understand how a coding agent reads your prompts, writes code, and turns it into something running on your machine.
An AI coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, or Gemini CLI) set up on your laptop, and the confidence to actually use it. You'll know how to start a fresh project from a blank folder, write prompts the agent can act on, get unstuck when things go wrong, and turn the result into something usable.
A starter pack of recipes for the projects people actually build after this workshop: a daily journal, an inbox triage helper, a small website, or a simple mobile productivity app. Copy them, adapt them, ship them.
This is where you stop chatting with AI and start directing it. You'll set up your first coding agent (Claude Code, Codex, or Gemini CLI) on your own laptop, and by the end of the evening you'll have used it to build something that works. If you already pay for Claude Pro, ChatGPT Plus, or Gemini Pro, you don't need anything else. You've just been using it through the wrong door.
Who this is for
Every professional. PMs, marketers, founders, ops, designers, coaches, consultants, HR, anyone who's been wondering what they're missing. Whether you use ChatGPT every day or you secretly suspect you're behind, you're in the right place. No technical experience needed. Beginners are especially welcome.
Who's running this
Phil Bennett is an engineering leadership consultant. 25 years building and fixing engineering teams. He now spends most of his time helping non-engineers become AI-fluent. He has a rare gift for making technical things feel obvious.
Igor Ranc runs Handpicked Berlin. Former product and project manager, self-described "idea man" who, for years, couldn't ship his own ideas. That changed when he learned what's in this workshop. He now spends most of his free time building things and is, quietly, kind of insufferable about how good it feels.
What people said about the pilot
"I'm a psychologist, and this course gave me a clear, hands-on introduction. What really stood out was the atmosphere: lots of laughter, astonishing stories from participants, and a genuinely inspiring group. I now feel much more confident understanding where AI is heading and what its current limits are. I'd highly recommend this to non-technical people who may have only used tools like ChatGPT so far. And yes, I used ChatGPT to help polish this testimonial, which felt only right after the course. 😉" Anne, HR Manager
"With relatively little coding experience, I was pleasantly surprised how quickly I was up and running making genuinely useful things. By the end, I had built a web app that has saved me a ton of time at work, and I'm far more confident using AI tools in a meaningful way." Adam McBean, 3D / AI Project Manager
How the evening runs
We meet at a rooftop in Neukölln. Small group, healthy and unhealthy snacks 🍿. Phil and Igor will walk you from "what is this little black window?" through to a working desktop app you built yourself. Hands-on, lots of "wait, is it really that easy?" moments. By the end you'll know your way around the terminal, you'll have Claude Code, Codex, or Gemini CLI running on your laptop, and you'll know how to guide them so they build what you want.
A week or two later you meet again online. Once you've played, broken things, and run into your own problems, bring your bugs and your questions. Phil and Igor will work through them with you.
Bring with you
A modern laptop (Windows, macOS, or Linux)
A Claude Pro, ChatGPT Plus, or Google AI Pro subscription
A willingness to try something new
Tickets
Early bird, €99
Regular, €129
Notify me about the next one (free, if these dates don't work)
We keep these workshops small so everyone gets personal attention from Phil and Igor. Book early to secure your spot.
Ask your manager. This fits cleanly into a Learning & Development budget. We have a template email you can forward.
About Impact Hub Berlin
Impact Hub Berlin helps social impact entrepreneurs, organisations and partners create products and services that make the world a better place. We host a 3.500qm circular coworking space with over 500 members, various incubator & accelerator programmes, an impact ecosystem, and community events. You can also rent out our space for your events and workshops/meetings. You'd like to organise your own event or are you interested in becoming a member? Visit us here!
Come build something. This is the door we wish someone had opened for us a year ago. Open it for yourself. We'll see you on the rooftop.
Other dates: Saturday May 23 at 10:00, or Tuesday May 26 at 18:00 (same workshop, different evening).