The Mark Cuban Foundation is launching its first AI program for adult learners, a free five-day accelerator for community college students in Dallas starting August 17. The Agentic AI Academy, run in partnership with the nonprofit Lift Our Voices, aims to bring practical AI training to people in the trades and other communities that often lack access to such education.
Since 2019, the foundation's AI education has focused on high school students through its AI Bootcamp. The new pilot expands that work to adults at Dallas College, with no technical background required. Participants will learn to build and use AI agents tailored to their own jobs, including a personal career coach agent.
What the program covers
The hands-on program runs half-day sessions built around specific workplace results. By the end of the week, each student will have created a set of working AI agents. For the Mark Cuban Foundation, this pilot represents a first step toward broader adult programs.
"Community colleges are in every region across the country, often in places that are not served by other educational institutions," said Charlotte Dungan, chief learning officer at the Mark Cuban Foundation. "By bringing Agentic AI to small business owners, community members and students who are entering or re-entering the workforce, we can expand who is empowered to use Agentic AI."
Educators and adult learners exploring AI for Education can find similar practical approaches to integrating agentic tools into workplace training and career development.
Helping workers read contracts
Lift Our Voices developed one of the tools students will test during the program. The LOV Where You Work AI Tool analyzes employment contracts and onboarding paperwork for hidden nondisclosure agreements and forced arbitration clauses that can silence employees. Students will run a sample contract through the tool and model how each side might respond to the results.
Lift Our Voices co-founder Gretchen Carlson said young workers deserve to know what they're signing. "Young people entering the workforce deserve to know what's in their employment contracts before they sign away their rights. But clauses around NDAs and forced arbitration are often overly complex and buried deep in contracts," Carlson said. "Our free LOV Where You Work AI Tool helps close that gap by identifying how these silencing mechanisms show up in contracts and translating the legal terminology into plain language."
The AI Learning Path for Teachers offers similar practical training resources for educators who want to bring AI literacy into their classrooms and career advising.
Co-founder Julie Roginsky said Gen Z expects transparency and healthy workplace culture. "Just as job applicants ask about salary and healthcare benefits, our tool can help them ask informed questions about a company's use of silencing mechanisms," she said.
Why this matters for educators
For education professionals working with adult learners, the pilot demonstrates a framework for teaching AI to people with no technical background, delivering measurable outcomes in one week. The program also models how to embed workplace rights information and career coaching into AI curricula. Educators at community colleges, trade schools, and workforce development programs can borrow the accelerator format and the contract-review tool for their own classrooms and training sessions. The program's focus on under-served regions also gives education staff a practical template for reaching students outside traditional four-year campuses.
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