A free, beginner-friendly deep dive into Artificial Intelligence, designed for entrepreneurs and small business professionals.
Wednesday, June 3, 2026 5:00 – 7:30 PM Amundson Center (lower level, Village Offices) 200 Spring Street, Cambridge, WI
Free to attend. Registration required below.
Refreshments provided. Bring your laptop or device.
Co-hosted by Collaborative 523 Inc and Cambridge Public Library. Sponsored by Enbridge.
You have heard that AI is a "game changer" — but what does that actually look like for a small business owner managing a busy day? And how do you find time to learn something new when you are already stretched thin?
This special evening workshop combines two popular UW-Madison SBDC sessions — AI 101 and AI 102 — into one engaging 2.5-hour experience designed for entrepreneurs, managers, and small-business professionals at every level.
Part 1: Is it the Real World, or is it AI? (AI 101)
Start from scratch. No jargon. No hype. No assumed experience. You will learn:
What AI actually is, from Large Language Models and chatbots to agents, and what to watch for when a tool is "free"
Simple, repeatable frameworks for deciding when, how, and whether to use AI in your business
Prompt engineering basics so you get better results right away
How to use AI as a collaborator, not a replacement, with a "human in the loop" workflow
Part 2: AI-Enhanced Entrepreneurship (AI 102)
Ready to go deeper? You will move from "interesting outputs" to results you can actually use in your business:
How context engineering makes AI outputs sound like your brand, not a generic answer
What Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) means and why it matters for small businesses
How to build a simple Custom GPT tailored to your business context
How to stay the human in the loop and recognize where AI judgment still falls short
A realistic case study applying all of these skills together
You will leave with sample prompts, practical tools, and the confidence to keep exploring.
About the Presenter
Heather Ferguson is Program Manager at the UW-Madison Small Business Development Center (SBDC), where she designs and delivers educational programs for entrepreneurs and busy professionals. An ASBDC AI U Certified consultant (supported by Google.org), Heather has presented AI fundamentals to more than 900 entrepreneurs and SBDC colleagues locally, statewide, and nationally. She is a member of the national ASBDC AI Interest Group and the AI U Advanced Curriculum Committee, and is a recipient of the inaugural ASBDC 40 Under 40 award (2022).