Robert Shumake completes the Harvard Data Science Initiative Agentic AI Intensive

The credential at a glance

Program

Harvard Data Science Initiative — Agentic AI Intensive

Presented by

Harvard Data Science Review

Dates

June 9–25, 2026 (2.5 weeks)

Credential

Certificate of Completion

Verification code

UTHW-KVJS

Capstone

AI education for communities without access to Harvard

What the program covered

The intensive, presented by Harvard Data Science Review, trains participants in agentic AI — autonomous systems that plan, reason, and execute complex tasks without continuous human direction. The curriculum covered:

• AI agent architecture
• Prompt engineering
• Multi-agent systems
• Deploying AI across business operations — content, customer acquisition, data analysis, and strategic decision-making

From the capstone to the Smart Money Black AI Executive Program

The Certificate of Completion required a capstone. Shumake's was to study the Harvard HDSI curriculum and rebuild it for communities that will never have access to Harvard: entrepreneurs across Africa and incarcerated people in the American prison system. Not everyone can go to Harvard — but everyone deserves access to the education Harvard provides.

That capstone became the Smart Money Black AI Executive Program, a four-week course with a personal AI Executive Coach, built 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, under the theme "Economic Sovereignty," before more than 1,000 Black business owners. The National Business League, founded by Booker T. Washington in 1900, is the nation's oldest Black business organization.

In parallel, free AI courses are being deployed through seven religious universities to communities across Africa, and to federal prisoners through the Sacred Study Beyond Walls program.

From a Ford plant floor to Harvard AI

As documented in the 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, spending 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 same methodology that took me from sweeping floors at Ford to managing $200 million works in AI. The constraint was never intelligence or capital. It was access to information. This program eliminates that constraint."

Why the AI adoption gap matters

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 — which is why the Harvard-level curriculum is being delivered at a price point accessible to working entrepreneurs, through an institution that has served Black business owners for 126 years.

Questions about the Harvard credential