Programme Schedule
The 2026 TECHNEST cohort runs from April 25 through July 17, 2026 — twelve weeks of teaching plus capstone, anchored by three milestone dates.
Key dates
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| Saturday, April 25, 2026 | 🎓 Matriculation Ceremony |
| Monday, April 27, 2026 | 🚀 Official Programme Start & Onboarding |
| Friday, July 17, 2026 | 🏁 Expected Programme Completion |
Weekly cadence
Each week is one two-hour live session plus self-paced lab time. The session follows a fixed five-phase shape so students always know what's next:
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 0 – 15 min | Recap & Check-in — what worked last week, what got stuck. |
| 15 – 40 min | Concept Teaching — the new tool, pattern, or doctrine for the week. |
| 40 – 75 min | Live Demo — instructor builds the week's feature on screen, voice-prompting AI. |
| 75 – 105 min | Hands-On Lab — students follow the same prompt sequence on their own laptops. |
| 105 – 120 min | Q&A + Wrap — troubleshooting, assignment briefing, next-week preview. |
8-week teaching phase (April 27 – June 19, 2026)
Each week grafts one full-stack feature onto the same personal website. By Week 8 students own a single coherent production-grade product.
| Week | Topic | Stack added |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | AI Developer Toolkit Setup | Cursor, Claude Code, Gemini CLI, MCPs, Skills, GitHub |
| 2 | Deploy Your Personal Website | Next.js + Tailwind + Vercel |
| 3 | Add an AI Clone of Yourself | Gemini 2.5 Flash chat widget |
| 4 | Go Full-Stack: Neon + Auth | Neon Postgres + Neon Auth + Drizzle |
| 5 | Image Uploads with Vercel Blob | Vercel Blob storage |
| 6 | Blog System | MDX blog + RSS feed |
| 7 | Real-Time Slack Notifications | Slack webhook + server actions |
| 8 | Typst PDF Automation | Typst CLI + Typst skill in Claude Code |
4-week capstone phase (June 22 – July 17, 2026)
Students form teams of 2–4 and evolve the personal site they built into a deployed multi-user AI SaaS. See the full Capstone Specification for tracks (Campus Life · Personal Growth · Creative Tools), requirements, and Demo Day evaluation criteria.
| Week | Phase |
|---|---|
| 9 | Kickoff, scope, repo — team formation, vertical slice deployed by end of week. |
| 10 | Build the critical path — AI feature in place, first external user test. |
| 11 | Harden, polish, market — landing page, accessibility, five real users signed up. |
| 12 | Demo Day — 5-minute live demo, 3-minute Q&A with invited guests. |
Submission rhythm
- Weekly assignments (50%) — every Friday students submit (a) the updated live site URL and (b) a screenshot of the Cursor / Claude Code conversation that drove the change. The screenshot requirement reinforces the prompt-first doctrine: the prompt is the work.
- Participation (10%) — attendance, voice in Q&A, helping unblock classmates.
- Capstone (40%) — functionality, deployment health, team collaboration, live demo.