Your first real thing.
Most kids your age learn about AI. Very few actually make something with it. First Build is for the kids who want to be in the second group.
Not a course. Not a workshop you sit through. A weekend, a week, and a Demo Day with your parents in the room. By the end you have your first real thing.
School students. Class 8 to 11. No coding background needed. If you can write and use the internet, you can build.
The new generation of AI tools is the first that can be operated entirely in plain language. The wall between having an idea and shipping a working version of it has dropped. This is for everyone that wall used to keep out.
A two-day weekend, in person. A week of online check-ins. Demo Day with your parents.
Two days to build. A week to make it better. Demo Day to show it off.
A weekend. A week to keep going. Demo Day with your parents in the room.
Day 1 asks one question: what can AI help me build for myself? You build your own AI tutor for a chapter you actually have to learn. One that explains the concepts. One that quizzes you. One that coaches you through your doubts. One that builds you a revision plan.
Day 2 asks a different question: what can AI help me build to help others? In a team, you build a working web app for a real problem. A lost-and-found for your school. A homework tracker. A peer tutor match. Adopt a tree. Or your own idea.
By Sunday evening, you have something real on your laptop that did not exist on Friday.
The week after, we keep showing up online. Quick check-ins. Help when you get stuck. Time to polish your build and figure out how you want to show it.
Demo Day, you walk on stage. Three minutes. Your build behind you. Your parents in the room. You walk off with a recording you can keep.
Not just tools. A way of thinking.
Most AI training teaches what to click. We teach how to think. So when the tools change next year, you still know what to build.
Builds the builder.
First principles. Problem framing. Systems thinking. The mental moves that don't go obsolete.
Builds the AI.
How models actually work. How they think, learn, and act. Beyond the prompt, into the substance.
Builds the business.
Turning insight into narrative. Narrative into influence. Influence into outcomes.
Tools change every year. This intellectual spine doesn't.
Not taught as theory. Applied at every decision. By the end it becomes how you think. Not just for this build but for every one after.
Samson David
Founder · Orange Caterpillar
- Former CEO of a category leading AI tech startup.
- Former Fortune 100 CXO. $20B+ operations. 200K+ team.
- Board member and strategic advisor, theAgenticOS.ai.
- The Economic Times Global Leaders Award 2022.
This is what built First Build.
A working portfolio of real things you built
Your own AI tutor. A live web app. Both real. Both made by you. On a single page you can share.
A three-minute Demo Day recording
You on stage. Parents in the room. Your build behind you. Recorded for life.
The First Build Toolkit
What you use to keep building after the program ends.
The OC Certificate
Awarded at Demo Day. It marks completion. Not attendance.
A repeatable way to build
You now know how to go from idea to reality. Again and again.
The confidence that comes from doing
You know from experience that you can start from zero and make something real.
First Build does not end when Demo Day ends.
OC Alumni Network
A long-term community of young builders. Your cohort becomes your first real network.
The David Foundation Scholarship
A scholarship awarded to the most innovative build in the cohort. The one that built something real for a real person.
A path into Just Build
Minifounders who want to go further can step into Just Build, our build program for college students, when the time is right. Two tracks: Foundation for placements, Ventures for building your own thing.
If everything reduces to one outcome it is this.
You leave with your first real thing.
Not someone who attended a workshop. Not someone who learned tools. Someone who has made.
Something real on your laptop that did not exist before.
Everything else is in service of that.
A meaningful share of every First Build cohort fee flows into The David Foundation, which works to widen access to opportunity for those who begin life with less.