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.

Anyone who only wants to complete a course once a year and then file away a certificate will find plenty of other options.

My platform is designed differently.

Of course, a company needs evidence. Training must be documented, and a managing director or owner will, if necessary, want to be able to demonstrate that the required training has taken place.

But if we are making the effort to train people anyway, then in my view they should actually know something afterwards. And above all, they should be able to access it again later.

Because who still remembers every detail six months after a training course? I certainly don’t. The knowledge often becomes relevant precisely when you need it: a specific case comes up in day-to-day work and suddenly you think: There was something about that.

Then I don’t want to have to work through an entire course all over again first.

That is why the content remains accessible even outside the actual training. The full-text search can be used to look specifically for what is needed at the moment. Not at some point during the next mandatory training, but at the moment the question arises. But for me, there is something else to it as well.

Something I learned correctly once won’t necessarily stay correct forever.

Laws change. Requirements change. And sometimes a change simply means that knowledge that was still correct yesterday needs to be supplemented or corrected today.

In my view, it isn’t enough to quietly replace the text on the platform and hope that someone notices at some point. If relevant knowledge changes because the law has changed, targeted refresher training can be initiated.

That is exactly the difference for me between a course and a learning platform. And to be completely honest: small and medium-sized enterprises in particular often do not have the capacity to keep up to date.

Learn – look up – update.

Not starting everything from scratch every year. Instead, keeping knowledge available and providing refresher training where something has actually changed.

That sounds surprisingly self-evident.

But it is not always.

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.