AI is and remains a technology — which is why you master the basics of the ICT field as quickly as possible.
AI is and remains a technology, which is why it is worth mastering its foundations as early as possible. You gain insight into the breadth of the ICT field at an introductory level.
That basic knowledge is the foundation for everything that follows: if you master the five pillars of ICT, you can hold your own in conversations with IT professionals and vendors, and you understand where AI fits in the landscape.
The temptation is to think the fundamentals no longer matter now that AI writes the code. The opposite is true: precisely when a machine hands you a solution, technical knowledge is the only thing that lets you judge what you have been handed.
And the fundamentals themselves are shifting. Infrastructure becomes compute you pay for by the token. Security gains attack surfaces no firewall covers, such as an instruction hidden inside a document. And next to the classic database there is suddenly a vector layer.
You examine your own employer's IT landscape along the five pillars: where does the data live, how do systems talk to each other, and where would AI fit?
A quality officer maps out how order data flows through four systems — and immediately finds two bottlenecks.
An analyst calls the planning system's API themselves and builds a first automated report.
A project leader compares cloud options for an AI pilot and gives well-founded advice on the choice.
You take this module the way you take the whole programme: classes every other week on Friday and Saturday, with a study load of 15–20 hours per week, of which 10–15 hours is self-study. The teaching is a mix of classroom lessons, practice-based learning, blended learning and working groups or study teams — taught by lecturers who practise the profession themselves on a daily basis.
You conclude each theme with a professional product or a technical solution addressing a real situation in your own work, which you discuss in an assessment with the lecturer. That way your portfolio grows with real work — and your employer benefits directly.
The format is not new: the teaching approach and the AI modules have been running for three years at the AI Proeflokaal — with business, with government, and across part-time modules and minors. What you meet in class here has already been worn in elsewhere.
After this module you read and discuss IT architecture with confidence and know where AI fits in the landscape.
Email or call the programme — we will gladly help you think it through.