Clear Thinking with AI
Cognitive security and thinking protocols for leaders, teams and individuals.
Practical two-part live online course.
Register your interestOnline cohort course
Format: 2 x 90-min live online sessions
Audience: Leaders, senior managers, teams, professionals
Programme offered as a public course and also in-house, bespoke for your team
Investment: R2,500/ $150 pp for open/ public course (contact us for in-house prices)
WHY
CLEAR THINKING WITH AI
is a practical two-part live online course designed to help people across the business use AI in ways that improve speed and output quality without weakening judgement, critical thinking or problem framing. The course was intentionally designed with a strong human-first
approach and with practical application in class.
HOW
THE COURSE IS STRUCTURED IN TWO CLASSES
Format: Format 2 × 90-min live online sessions
Audience: Leaders, senior managers, teams, professionals
Themes: AI, creative thinking, creative problem solving, business innovation
SESSION 1
How to augment higher-order thinking with AI
Understanding learning and cognition, fast and slow thinking, and how our thinking can be augmented or eroded by AI. Analytical, critical, and creative thinking applied to real workflows.
SESSION 2
Cognitive security and safer AI workflows
Unpacking cognitive security in practice and the four AI risk surfaces leaders encounter daily. Practical safeguards for your settings, instructions, workflows and projects.
WHAT
PARTICIPANTS WILL LEARN HOW TO
- use AI without surrendering judgement
- break work into parts so they can decide what to do themselves and what to delegate to AI
- evaluate AI outputs for logic, assumptions, gaps and risk
- use AI more creatively to generate better options, not just quicker drafts
- apply practical safeguards that reduce sycophancy, hidden assumptions and context drift
Participants will leave with
A mapped view of a key workflow and where AI adds value, and where it introduces risk
Critical thinking habits and creative AI prompting techniques they can apply immediately
Concrete safeguards to reduce AI over-trust, hidden assumptions, and context drift
A safeguard testing tool to test the risk exposure of all the AI tools they use
WHY THIS COURSE, WHY NOW
The hidden cost of AI convenience
- AI output can give fast thinking the appearance of rigour
- Organisations gain efficiency while losing capability
- The most dangerous risk is the one leaders don't feel happening
What this is not
- Not a general AI literacy or foundations programme
- Not about tools or technology adoption
- Human first, technology second; we establish the leader before introducing the threat
WHO
MEET OUR TEAM
Nina Pearse
Co-founder of Creativity Wake-Up | Leadership activator and creative thinking specialist
Nina Pearse is co-founder of Creativity Wake-Up and a specialist in creative and critical thinking for business. She works with senior teams in high-stakes environments to unlock creative capacity, drive innovation and bring clarity and energy back into serious work. Nina draws on neuroscience, behavioural science and over 20 years of global leadership and change experience. She has held senior roles at Deloitte and Dimension Data, serves as adjunct faculty at GIBS, and is an associate of the NeuroLeadership Institute. Nina holds an honours degree in Business Science from UCT and has designed and delivered leadership and innovation programmes across five continents.
Oscar Sanchez
Founder of Cogsec | AI facilitator at MIT Professional Development
Oscar Sanchez is the Founder of Gen AI Global and a Learning Facilitator with MIT Professional Education, specialising in Applied and Agentic AI. He co-founded AIforAll Global and Patrones Hermosos at MIT, scaling a national STEM programme across 23 Mexican cities with Tec de Monterrey, reaching over 2,000 students. Oscar helps teams adopt AI in ways that deliver real, measurable results. He helps teams design AI workflows, build systems where humans stay in control, and create oversight processes that hold up when moved from testing into real-world use. He brings deep expertise in AI literacy, learning design, and responsible implementation at scale.
Amber Bellou
Co-Founder of GenMrkt | COO of Gen AI Global
Amber Bellou is a data scientist, researcher, and cognitive safety consultant working at the intersection of AI, education, and human-centered design. She is the Founder of CogSec, a nonprofit developing frameworks and curricula to protect human judgment, attention, and trust in the age of AI. Amber is currently pursuing a Master's in Learning Design, Innovation and Technology at Harvard Graduate School of Education, and holds an M.S. in Data Analytics and Computational Social Science. With a background spanning data science, executive leadership, and AI literacy, she helps organizations navigate overreliance and decision risk through cognitive safety strategy and education.
Celia Falkenberg
Co-founder of Creativity Wake-Up | Architect and creative intelligence specialist
A professionally trained architect who brings a distinctively structured approach to creative thinking in business. Architecture is fundamentally a discipline of structured creativity, holding constraints and imagination in tension to solve complex problems. Celia applies that same rigour to designing and facilitating programmes that build creative thinking capability across industries. Celia is co-founder of Creativity Wake-Up, adjunct faculty at GIBS Business School, and holds an Honours degree in Architecture from University of Cape Town and a Master's degree in Housing and Urbanisation from the Architectural Association in London, graduated with distinction.
What people are saying
Annie Hanekom
Systemic Team Coach l Leadership Challenger l Director at Proteus Leadership
"I got so much value - mostly realising that there is so much more to these AI tools than I've even realised. I’ve also realised how much more critical thinking needs to go into the use of them."
Vaughan Wickins
Founder GUTWISE and OCEAN Breathing
"There was great content and powerful analogies. I valued hearing about key risks and how to improve settings. Nina is a great presenter."
Deborah Kirsten
Author | Motivational Speaker | Co-founder of Strongest Story
"The course was extremely useful. I especially valued being reminded to question the validity of AI results and the importance of the critical thinking skills needed when working."
