Robert Shumake completes the Harvard Data Science Initiative Agentic AI Intensive

Presented by Harvard Data Science Review, the program is concentrated training in agentic AI — autonomous systems that plan, reason and execute complex tasks without continuous human direction. The curriculum covers AI agent architecture, prompt engineering, multi-agent systems, and deployment of AI across business operations including content generation, customer acquisition, data analysis and strategic decision-making.

Rather than keeping the Harvard knowledge for personal use, Shumake built it into a structured program for Black business owners. The Smart Money Black AI Executive Program delivers the same methodology through a four-week course with a personal AI Executive Coach, designed for entrepreneurs with no technical background.

It launches at the National Business League's 126th Annual Conference, August 19–22, 2026 at the Hilton Atlanta Hotel, themed "Economic Sovereignty," where Shumake will present to more than 1,000 Black business owners across two days. The National Business League is the nation's oldest Black business organization, founded by Booker T. Washington in 1900.

Participants receive AI training, 1,000 Manus AI credits, a feature in Smart Money Black Magazine, distribution across 10 newspaper platforms, and an international travel certificate on graduation.

According to McKinsey research, 79 percent of Black-owned businesses have not yet adopted AI tools, compared with 52 percent of all U.S. businesses. That adoption gap threatens to widen the racial wealth divide as AI reshapes every industry.

As documented in his Amazon #1 bestselling book Climbing Your Inner Mountain: Ten Steps to Reaching Any Goal (Take the Land Publishing, 2013), Shumake began his career as a janitor at a Ford Motor Company plant in Detroit, where he spent three years listening to business audiobooks while pushing a mop cart. He left Ford and earned $194,000 in his first year in real estate, $600,000 in his second and one million dollars in his third.

By 2011, Black Enterprise ranked his firm, Inheritance Capital Group L.L.C. of Southfield, Michigan, tenth nationally among the largest Black-owned private equity firms, with $200 million in capital under management across two funds — figures independently verified by KBL L.L.P., Certified Public Accountants and Advisors. The ranking placed him directly below RLJ Equity Partners and eight places below Vista Equity Partners.

With the Harvard AI credential, he is applying the same self-directed learning method that took him from the factory floor to the Black Enterprise list — this time to artificial intelligence.