Applied AI · Workshops · Keynotes
I'm Yves Hughes. Companies bring me in to turn AI from a buzzword into something their teams can actually use — safely, and on the work they already do.
Six-time hackathon winner. Patient teacher. Here to help your people win — not to dump jargon on them.
Where I've shipped AI
What I do
Every engagement is built around your team's real work — not a generic slide deck.
Hands-on workshops that take a whole team from AI-curious to building. We work on your actual workflows — including AI safety and how to build and manage agents that don't break. They leave having shipped something real.
Half-day or multi-day · On-site or virtual
1:1 and small-group coaching for leaders who need to lead on AI, not just nod along. I help you set up the tools, build your own agents, and make confident calls. It's how I coach 40+ leaders in the Rewired Mastermind.
Ongoing · 1:1 or small group
Talks that make AI feel exciting and doable — for conferences, all-hands, and leadership offsites. From the main stage (including TEDx) to your sales kickoff. Always tailored, never the canned AI-doom speech.
25 / 45 / 60-min · Virtual or in-person
I embed as a fractional advisor for teams who want a steady hand — Advisory, a lighter ongoing engagement.
Before you book
The goal is not to make AI sound impressive. It is to help your people make better decisions, build useful things, and know where the guardrails belong.
We start with a short scoping call, pick two or three real workflows, and shape the session around the tools and constraints your team already has.
Leaders, operators, product teams, sales teams, and mixed technical groups who need practical AI fluency without pretending everyone is an engineer.
Every engagement includes plain-English guidance on data exposure, review loops, tool boundaries, and when an AI agent should not be trusted alone.
A working prototype or reusable workflow, a shared vocabulary for AI decisions, and a next-step plan your team can keep using after the session.
By the numbers
Hackathon wins — Google · Meta · Snowflake
Leaders coached every month
Building products people actually use
Teams he's built AI inside
Yves HughesMeet Yves
Yves Hughes builds AI for a living — and teaches like he wants you to win.
He's shipped AI inside some of the largest companies on earth, and he's won hackathons hosted by Google, Meta, and Snowflake by building working products in a weekend. But what tells you who he is, is what he built when no one was paying him to: as a foster dad, he watched a $9.5 billion system run on fax machines, so he founded a nonprofit and built AI agents to fix it.
That's the throughline. Yves doesn't do AI theater. He builds, he teaches, and he's endlessly patient about meeting people exactly where they are — which is why companies keep flying him in to bring their teams along.
Ask him anything →Still building
Every few weeks I'm at a hackathon shipping something new. Here's the running list — proof I practice what I teach.
Google I/O Hackathon · Cerebral Valley × Google DeepMind
Reinforcement learning environment for training email agents. It cloned my Gmail inbox, let me approve or snooze AI responses with body movements, then exported trusted preferences for production deployment.
ExecuTorch · Meta × Qualcomm × Samsung × GitHub
On-device edge AI for home inventory. Built with ExecuTorch on Samsung Galaxy S25 + Snapdragon 8 Elite — no cloud required.
SVAI Hub Hackathon · Snowflake
Computer-vision ADA compliance checker. Upload a walkthrough video — AI flags door widths, missing handrails, ramp slopes, and signage gaps with timestamped citations.
Meta Llama 4 NYC Hackathon · Cerebral Valley
Real-time AI public speaking coach. Analyzes voice, filler words, body language, eye contact, and content structure — live feedback powered by Llama 4.
Lisk Onchain Spring Hackathon
Peer-to-peer parking network — property owners monetize unused spaces, guests find real-time availability. Solidity / Next.js / Three.js on Lisk L2.
Coinbase CODE NYC
Onchain assessment tool. Won $2,500 at Coinbase CODE NYC — 46 projects submitted across 4 challenges.
What people say
Short pulls from LinkedIn recommendations and recent comments.
Super knowledgeable, calm in a crisis, and always willing to help the team.
A quick learner who produced expected outcomes under tight deadlines.
Super fun and engaging. This is the energy people want in an AI session.
The heart of it
Yves is president and co-founder of Foster & Adoption Support, where AI agents he built run social media, bookkeeping, grants, and reporting — so humans can focus on kids. He speaks on what AI looks like when it serves people who can't pay for it, including his TEDx talk.
Ready when you are
Tell me what your team's working on. I'll show you what's possible — fast, and without the hype.
On-site or virtual · Workshops, coaching & keynotes · 25 / 45 / 60-min talks
Book a call
30-minute discovery call
30 min · A short, no-pressure intro call.