That is why it is not about someone looking at slides for 45 minutes once a year and then still remembering which answer had to be ticked for question 7. Knowledge has to resurface in day-to-day work. It has to fit one’s own role, be easy to understand, and still help even when the training is long over.
In the meantime, data protection, cybersecurity, fire safety, occupational safety and ergonomics have been added to the topic of the EU AI Act. And because AI was the starting point of this whole story, it also has a special place beyond that: with additional courses that are not only intended to explain which rules apply to AI, but above all how to use it sensibly and competently in day-to-day work.
That’s why the platform is still called EU AI Act Academy today. The name reminds me of where this whole story began.
And beneath the name, these words sum up what it has become:
Work safely. Use AI wisely. Put knowledge into practice.
That is how the few ideas I marched into my father’s nursing home with back then turned into something that no longer has much in common with my original plan.
And yet, at the same time, it has a great deal in common. Because I kept one benchmark: my father should understand what I am actually doing. He was 88 years old when he told me, quite bluntly, that at first that was not the case. In the end, he knew what the EU AI Act is about.
And if I manage to present complex topics in a way that means people do not just complete a course, but can say afterwards: “Now I understand what this has to do with me and my day-to-day work,” then his criticism back then may have become one of the most important principles of this Academy.
I think he would have liked that.