A one-year academy for people straight out of school. No degree required, no debt-loaded theory — you learn by building a real, funded business, with AI as your execution engine.
A traditional degree costs years and a fortune, teaches pre-AI theory, and graduates you without ever having run anything. Kaern Schools is the opposite: in twelve months you build and launch a real company, and you graduate fluent in the one skill that matters now — directing AI to design, make, sell and run a business. You don't study a case. You become the case.
You don't need a CompSci degree, an engineering background, or money. You need curiosity, taste, and the will to build.
A product, a service, a problem you want to solve. We give you the skills, the tools, the AI and the capital to make it real.
Not a graduate looking for a job — a founder running a live, funded company you own, with skills no one can take away.
Every subject is taught hands-on, on real software we build and run — and AI does the heavy lifting while you learn to direct it and see the big picture.
Model real parts in a browser-native B-Rep CAD — Text-to-CAD, Photo-to-CAD, 150+ PBR materials and ray-traced renders.
Generate toolpaths and G-code, simulate the cut, then drive the machine — full CAM-to-controller workflow.
Export print-ready geometry, slice it, add supports, and turn your design into a part you can hold by tomorrow.
Stress-test parts with built-in FEA and run a design-for-manufacture check before you ever cut metal.
Write ladder logic and run a full PLC + HMI simulator — a 10-tab controller and 8-screen panel with 215 functions.
Flash an ESP32, read sensors, talk Modbus / RS485 and VFDs, and stream live telemetry over MQTT to a digital twin.
Turn a 3D model into AR-ready exploded views with an AI narrator, assembly steps and live McMaster-Carr parts.
Build fast, responsive, themeable sites on the kaern.org engine — Material Design 3 tokens, dark mode and RTL.
Craft cinematic scroll and hover motion — magnetic CTAs, FLIP transitions, word-reveal and custom cursors.
Stand up real-time APIs, auth and a live data layer that powers your devices, dashboards and app at once.
Ship a companion mobile app wired straight to your hardware, payments and control room.
Branch, review and ship version-controlled code — your company's single source of truth, the way pros work.
Privacy-by-design from day one — a 4-layer anti-spam shield, SHA-256 gates and hardened publishing.
Build agents and MCP tools that run your stack hands-free — the same autonomy layer that deploys this site.
Assemble the full near-ERP storefront — the exact module this very site and five live products are built on.
Launch a real native store — products, variants, cart and secure checkout — with live, localized pricing.
Take cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and even Bitcoin Lightning — money in from anywhere, day one.
Watch your business live — device telemetry, sales and operations in one real-time control room.
Point a domain, deploy and enforce HTTPS automatically — the full DNS-to-live pipeline, done for you.
Generate a full brand system — logo, palette and type — and apply it across every page automatically.
Win Google and AI assistants with JSON-LD, FAQ/HowTo schema and a glossary engineered to be quoted.
Track every lead, follow up and close — a lightweight CRM with a full audit trail, no extra subscription.
Scrape and enrich prospect lists at scale, spam-filtered and delivered straight to your inbox.
A blog and guides engine, structured for search from day one — Claude can write and publish it for you.
Model the books and the cap table — AI does the math, you learn to read the numbers and make the calls.
Price for profit and read your unit economics like a founder, not a spreadsheet.
Plan operations and supply chain, then hand the routine to agents that keep it running.
GDPR consent and German §356 digital-checkout consent built in — compliance baked in, not bolted on.
Build the investor deck and rehearse the pitch — then present it on Demo Day to resident investors.
Run your whole company by voice: dispatch agents, review their work, and make the judgment calls.
A private knowledge pool every agent draws on — the compounding asset that makes your company smarter daily.
You won't sit through lectures alone. You learn the way the best business schools teach — from real cases, from each other, and by doing — with AI tutors beside you the whole way.
Dissect real companies — including our own live cycleX products — the way a top business school dissects a Harvard case. Then argue it out in seminars led by your AI faculty.
You're in a class of founders. You teach, challenge and sharpen each other — the peer network is half the value of any business school.
Build in teams on real briefs. Ship together, split the work, and learn to lead and to follow.
Run a company in simulation — pricing, cash, hiring, crises — and compete with your cohort on a live leaderboard. Play now →
Six expert tutors on call any hour — they teach, demonstrate and review your work, patiently and endlessly.
Present, get critiqued, iterate — by peers, mentors and the resident investors. Real stakes, real feedback.
Every phase follows the same rhythm: learn → build → show → demo → iterate → prototype.
Brainstorming & problem discovery, the AI-era operator mindset, learning to direct AI, forming your team.
CAD, CAM, 3D printing, electrical & PLC, simulation, embedded/IoT, documentation. Build a real, connected prototype.
Version control, frontend, backend, real-time platform, mobile app, dashboards, your website, cybersecurity.
Brand, marketing, SEO/AEO, sales & CRM, commerce, finance, operations, compliance — Entrepreneurial & Business Studies.
Integrate, iterate from real feedback, build your investor pitch, and present on Demo Day to the academy's resident investors.
A private knowledge pool of everything your company knows.
A fleet of custom AI workers you direct.
Your own playbooks — how your company operates.
The "source code" for directing your AI.
Your CAD & design library.
The real things you built and tested.
Datasets only your company has.
The mastered ability to direct AI — yours forever.
Plus the thing it all adds up to: a real, live, funded company you own.
Kaern Schools takes a stake in your company and backs it with capital, mentorship, and the whole cycleX suite + AI methodology to run on — for years after you graduate. We only win when you win.
No. You'll learn everything from scratch, and AI does the heavy lifting while you learn to direct it. Curiosity and drive matter more than prior skills.
Yes — it's a one-year alternative. You graduate with a real company and a portable, in-demand skill set, not just a certificate.
Tuition gets you in; the academy also takes a small equity stake and can provide capital — so we're invested in your success long-term. Exact terms are shared at admission.
Good — it should. You'll iterate fast. The skills, tools and the company you build are what carry forward.
A live, funded company; the eight AI-age assets above; and the AI-Native Operator credential.
No application fee. We select on drive, curiosity and taste — never a CV.
One modest tuition, paid up front. A refundable seat deposit secures your place.
We back your company and take ~10%; our investors ~30%. You own the majority — and the upside.
You graduate an AI-Native Operator with a live, funded company — the real diploma. (A credential, not an accredited degree.)
We invest in every founder we admit — capital, mentorship and the full cycleX suite — for years after you graduate. Your success is how we succeed. See the credential →
Bring the idea. We'll give you the skills, the tools, the AI and the backing to build it for real.