What the Harvard HDSI Agentic AI Intensive is
Presented by Harvard Data Science Review, the intensive is concentrated training in agentic AI — autonomous systems that plan, reason, and execute complex tasks without continuous human direction. The curriculum covers AI agent architecture, prompt engineering, multi-agent systems, and deployment of AI across business operations: content generation, customer acquisition, data analysis, and strategic decision-making.
The course is certified and requires a capstone project to earn the Certificate of Completion. Shumake completed the full program and received his certificate under verification code UTHW-KVJS, joining a cohort of technologists, entrepreneurs, and researchers selected for the intensive.
The capstone: Harvard-level AI for people who will never attend Harvard
Shumake's capstone was to study the Harvard HDSI curriculum and rebuild it for communities that will never have access to Harvard — specifically entrepreneurs in Africa and incarcerated people in the American prison system. Not everyone can go to Harvard. Everyone deserves access to the education Harvard provides.
He is deploying free AI courses through his seven religious universities to communities across Africa, and to federal prisoners through the Sacred Study Beyond Walls program, at no cost.
The Smart Money Black AI Executive Program
The capstone became a four-week structured 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 — themed "Economic Sovereignty" — August 19–22, 2026, at the Hilton Atlanta Hotel, where Shumake will present to more than 1,000 Black business owners across two days.
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 Wall Street Journal / Dow Jones) and Business 2.0 (originally Time Inc.). The National Business League is the nation's oldest Black business organization, founded by Booker T. Washington in 1900.
From Ford Motor Company janitor to Harvard AI graduate
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, where he spent three years listening to business audiobooks while pushing a mop cart. He left Ford and 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 him directly below RLJ Equity Partners (Robert L. Johnson) and eight places below Vista Equity Partners (Robert F. Smith).
"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."
Why it matters for Black economic development
According to McKinsey research, 79 percent of Black-owned businesses have not yet adopted AI tools, compared to 52 percent of all U.S. businesses. That adoption gap threatens to widen the racial wealth divide as AI reshapes every industry. Shumake's response is to bring Harvard-level education to the people who need it most, at a price point accessible to working entrepreneurs, through an institution that has served Black business owners for 126 years.