Harvard Data Science Initiative Agentic AI Intensive

Presented by Harvard Data Science Review, the intensive is concentrated training in agentic AI — autonomous artificial intelligence systems that plan, reason, and execute complex tasks without continuous human direction.

The curriculum covers AI agent architecture, prompt engineering, multi-agent systems, and the deployment of AI across business operations: content generation, customer acquisition, data analysis, and strategic decision-making. Completion requires a capstone project, not attendance alone.

Shumake's capstone was to study the Harvard HDSI curriculum and rebuild it for communities that will never have access to Harvard — specifically entrepreneurs across Africa and incarcerated people in the American prison system.

Not everyone can go to Harvard. Everyone deserves access to the education Harvard provides. Free AI courses are being deployed through his seven religious universities to communities across Africa, and to federal prisoners through the Sacred Study Beyond Walls program, at no cost.

The capstone became a structured four-week course with a personal AI Executive Coach, designed for entrepreneurs with no technical background. It launches at the National Business League's 126th Annual Conference, August 19–22, 2026, at the Hilton Atlanta Hotel, themed “Economic Sovereignty,” before more than 1,000 Black business owners.

Each participant receives AI training, 1,000 Manus AI credits, a feature in Smart Money Black Magazine, distribution across 10 newspaper platforms, and an international travel certificate on graduation.

Smart Money Black was created after Shumake acquired and republished Smart Money Magazine (originally founded by the Wall Street Journal / Dow Jones) and Business 2.0 (originally founded by Time Inc.). The National Business League, founded by Booker T. Washington in 1900, is the nation's oldest Black business organization.

According to McKinsey research, 79 percent of Black-owned businesses have not yet adopted AI tools, compared with 52 percent of all U.S. businesses. That gap threatens to widen the racial wealth divide as AI reshapes every industry.

“The same methodology that took me from sweeping floors at Ford to managing $200 million works in AI,” Shumake stated. “The constraint was never intelligence or capital. It was access to information. This program eliminates that constraint.”

As documented in his Amazon #1 bestselling book Climbing Your Inner Mountain: Ten Steps to Reaching Any Goal (Take the Land Publishing, 2013), Shumake began as a janitor at a Ford Motor Company plant in Detroit, listening to business audiobooks for three years while pushing a mop cart. He earned $194,000 in his first year in real estate, $600,000 in his second, and one million dollars in his third.

By 2011, Black Enterprise ranked his firm, Inheritance Capital Group L.L.C. of Southfield, Michigan, tenth nationally among the largest Black-owned private equity firms, with $200 million in capital under management across two funds — figures independently verified by KBL L.L.P., Certified Public Accountants and Advisors. The ranking placed the firm directly below RLJ Equity Partners and eight places below Vista Equity Partners.

The Harvard credential applies that same self-directed learning method to artificial intelligence.