When the world feels uncertain, one investment always pays off: investing in yourself. If you’ve been meaning to get hands-on with AI (beyond buzzwords), there’s a timely opportunity this week. On Thursday, October 2, the OpenAI Team at Carahsoft is hosting “The Future Belongs to Learners: AI Skills You Can Use Right Away” at the Carahsoft Conference & Collaboration Center in Reston, VA, with live virtual access available for the morning sessions. If you have a little extra time on your hands this week, this is an excellent way to use it.
The focus is simple: practical, responsible AI for public-sector work. Too often, training gets stuck in theory or hype. This program is intentionally different. You’ll learn how to use ChatGPT to speed up research, draft and refine writing, structure analysis, and tackle everyday tasks, and that’s all within the guardrails that matter in government environments. The instructors emphasize repeatable prompt patterns, sensible workflows, and best practices you can bring back to your desk immediately. It’s not about replacing judgment; it’s about giving your judgment better tools.
The day runs from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET and is built to meet you where you are. The morning sessions (Government 101 and 102), walk through foundations and intermediate techniques, from clean prompt structure to citation-friendly research and summarization standards. You’ll see how small adjustments in your approach can translate into big gains in drafting speed, clarity, and accuracy. The afternoon features in-person Q&A, lunch, and fast “lightning talk” demos that map specific features to common missions, such as policy and memo drafting, meeting prep, intake responses, and light data clean-up. Bring your laptop; this is a working session.
Whether you’re a program manager, analyst, comms lead, recruiter, or part of an operations or IT team, you’re constantly synthesizing information and responding to deadlines. AI won’t remove those pressures, but it can shorten the path from messy inputs to usable outputs. You’ll leave with concrete templates and techniques, like how to structure prompts, how to iterate without “hallucinating,” how to maintain tone and voice, and how to keep ethics and compliance front and center.
There’s also a professional development upside: attendees can earn up to 3.6 CPE credits*. If you’ve been looking for meaningful training hours before year-end, this is a convenient way to add credits while building skills you’ll actually use. And if you want to keep the momentum going, there’s a follow-on virtual session on Friday, October 3 to continue the conversation.
A few logistics to know: registration is required, and submissions are reviewed—your spot isn’t confirmed until you receive an approval email. The event is a Widely Attended Gathering (WAG) and free to attend.
If you’ve been curious about AI but weren’t sure where to start, or you’ve started and want to level up, this is a smart, low-friction way to make progress. You’ll get practical skills, a clearer understanding of responsible use, and a set of workflows you can put to work immediately. Register now and set aside a few hours on tomorrow. The future really does belong to learners, and this week, that can be you.
* CPE availability is contingent on attendance and eligibility requirements communicated by the organizers.
