What was originally planned as a course on the EU AI Act gradually evolved into a complete learning platform. And at some point, I had to ask myself the question that really should have come much earlier:
How do I actually want to learn myself?
After all, I’ve completed plenty of mandatory training sessions in my professional life. And if I’m being completely honest, the result was not always lasting knowledge. You take the course, answer the questions, and fulfil your obligation. A year later, the cycle begins again.
Fire safety training got me thinking. I realised it felt as though I’d been taking the same course for at least ten years. Until then, I’d thought: fire is fire. Protective clothing is protective clothing. What could possibly change that much?
Quite a lot, as I discovered during the development process.
Then there were the examples. I worked in administration. Why should I care how to move a pallet correctly in the warehouse? Of course, the warehouse employee needs to know that. But I needed different information for my daily work routine.
And then I asked myself another question that I had never really thought much about before: What do employees do with such training if they work for a German company but do not speak German well enough to reliably understand complex training texts?
My own answer at the time was shockingly simple: If they work here, they will know enough German. After all, no one has complained yet.
Well.
This is how the principle of today’s EU AI Act Academy gradually emerged.
There are basics that everyone needs. Then comes content for their own industry and, finally, the practical needs of their own department. Tailor-made instead of off-the-shelf.
And the content is not just available in German. Currently, there are nine languages. Not because nine languages look particularly impressive on a list, but because there are areas where a misunderstanding can be more than just annoying. Especially with fire safety and occupational health and safety, I don’t want “What on earth do they mean by that?” to eventually become “Oh, I guess they mean this…” and then be promptly applied incorrectly.
That’s why plain language matters to me too. Being complicated doesn’t automatically make you competent – and an impressive-sounding technical term doesn’t make anything easier to understand.