Rapid Growth Media: Free AI Classes Aim to Narrow the Digital Knowledge Gap

Rapid Growth Media's Shandra Martinez covered the free AI workshops we've been running at Bamboo Grand Rapids — and she got at the core of why we do them. The pace of AI development isn't slowing down for anyone, and the gap between people who understand these tools and people who don't is widening fast. The workshops are a direct response to that: 90-minute sessions that compress dozens of hours of real-world learning into something immediately useful, with no ticket price and no pitch at the end.

What Shandra captured well is that this isn't about novelty. Attendee James Tock put it better than I could: the goal is to filter out the hype and get to what actually moves the needle for real work. That's the whole point of Show & Tell — live demos, real tools, real workflows, and a room full of people asking the kind of questions that only come from showing up in person. Bamboo co-founder Matt Gira framed it the same way we think about it: the goal is to build a hub, build community, and make sure the people doing the building don't get left behind.