Why this programme exists
Mark van der Veen and Wiemer Kuik saw the same gap: organisations eager to work with AI, and nobody who could actually make it work. This programme is their answer.
Between theory and prompt course, there was nothing
If you wanted to learn AI, you had two options. One was the university: mathematics, research, understanding models from the inside. Valuable, but it costs you years, and at the end you can read a paper — not necessarily stand up a system your colleagues will use on Monday.
The other was the course market: an afternoon of prompting, a certificate, and then you face the same question again. How do I get this thing working inside my own organisation, with our data, our processes, our rules?
Between the two, nothing. No degree programme teaching you to design, build and run AI solutions where it counts: in the work you already do. That gap is where Applied AI stands.
An idea, a mindmap, and feedback from the field
It started with an idea. Not a curriculum, not a project plan — a hunch that something was missing between the theory and the practice.
That idea became a mindmap. Why, what and how side by side on a single surface, so you could see at a glance where the gaps were and which choices were still open.
And then the mindmap went out to the field. What survived that is in the programme today. What did not, fell away early — which is exactly what a sketch like this is for.
Two people, one observation
Wiemer Kuik
They teach on the programme themselves — meet your lecturers →
A programme that starts from your work
Four choices follow directly from that observation. They are described in full in our educational vision.
Part-time, alongside your job
Your practice is not something to schedule around. It is the starting point.
Portfolio as proof
You deliver real professional products, from your own organisation.
Programmatic assessment
Many small moments, not one decisive exam.
AI as a learning tool
You build with AI, and you learn with it from the very first lesson.