Find your people.
Build your edge.
AI is rewriting how we work, and it’s easier to learn together than alone. So we help you find people near you to learn with, build something real with AI, and grow more confident together. Sign in with Google to jump in.
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“The program gave me purpose again—connecting me with mission-driven public servants to tackle real problems. AI as an empowerment tool for people-first civic design.”
“I left realizing my gap is exactly where my strength lies—translating between tools, teams, and user needs. AI is about community, trust, and the human side of technology.”
Join a Build Cycle, solve a real problem
Problem Discovery
You’ll explore challenges that matter to you and to an entire industry, from real-world surveys to AI-assisted research. Through community voting, the most compelling problems rise to the top—and small teams called “pods” form around them.
Experimentation
As your pod explores your problem spaces, you come up with projects—proposed solutions to the challenges you’ve deeply understood. You’ll research, prototype, and test ideas: learning AI by doing, supported by peers and mentors along the way.
Synthesis
Projects turn experiments into working prototypes—tools, workflows, templates. Every cycle ends with a public showcase, so your work has visibility and impact beyond the twelve weeks. Projects can keep going at the end of the cycle as open-source efforts in the Labs.
Drop into a session
Virtual
Washington
Virtual
Washington
Washington
Virtual
Durable skills
The human skills the future of work runs on—skills like communication, storytelling, and framing problems well.
AI skills
The technical side of working with AI—understanding LLMs, prompt engineering, vibe coding, building agents, and more.
Supports the cycle
You can drop in whenever, but workshops track the Build Cycle, so each session gives you what your pod needs next.
Learn at your own pace
Find your city
DC Public Library · 112 members
1 person waiting
1 person waiting
0 people waiting
Founded in DC
The Upskilling Labs started as a pilot at the DC Public Library in the fall of 2025—a small group of 50 ex-feds navigating career change and new technologies together. Now, DC is home to our first chapter and our mission has expanded to all professionals.
Built to scale
We run our own Build Cycle process on ourselves, turning what works into an operating system and playbooks—so a new lab can stand up anywhere without reinventing how it works. Every cycle makes it better, and we’re building it all for the community, open-source.
Expanding nationally
We’re just getting started—and the impacts of AI are far from local. From DC, we’re heading to cities across the country. We aim to build a more resilient future of work for all of us by bringing the Labs to wherever people are ready to learn by doing alongside their neighbors.
A new way to learn, together
Unlike traditional courses with fixed enrollment and passive instruction, Open Labs are peer-powered and project-based. You don’t need a technical background to get started—just a willingness to learn by doing alongside others.
Inside an Open Lab, you’ll find weekly workshops and quarterly Build Cycles. Workshops support you in building the skills you need to master the future of work: from durable skills like problem framing to AI-specific skills like prompt-engineering.
Build Cycles are a twelve-week program where you go from deeply exploring a problem space, to forming a pod with peers, to rapidly prototyping solutions. Each month is anchored by a meetup where you present your progress, culminating in a demo at our Summit. And everything you create is open-source by default so others can learn from and build on your work.
Why we ask for your Google account
You create your member account by signing in with Google. We use only your name, email address, and profile picture — to set up your profile and keep you signed in. We never request access to your Gmail, Drive, or Calendar.
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