The Institute of Business Administration (IBA) at the University of Dhaka is launching a six-week certificate course called Artificial Intelligence for Business Professionals (AI BP), aimed at corporate staff who need to keep up with what AI is doing to their work.
The stated goals are to raise managers’ technical awareness, build an adaptable digital mindset, and make them competent in practical AI strategy — so that executives can make more skilled, innovative and current decisions in their jobs.
What is in it
The programme concentrates on the practical use of generative AI in modern business management, on prompt engineering, and on running AI-driven workflows. Participants will learn how to apply advanced AI models to:
- business correspondence
- data analysis
- strategic decision-making
There is also practical work on building personal and corporate prompt libraries, automating routine daily tasks, and managing AI-assisted teams.
Dates and entry
Classes begin formally at the IBA building on 27 November (Section A) and 28 November (Section B). The course runs to twelve classes of three hours each, held on Fridays and Saturdays. Applicants are allocated to sections based on seat availability and preference.
Eligibility is a bachelor’s degree in any subject plus at least five years of work experience, though the experience requirement is relaxable for candidates with exceptional qualifications.
Why the design is the interesting part
Note what this is not. It is not a computer science course, and it does not teach anyone to build a model. It teaches managers to use tools that already exist, and it is scheduled on Fridays and Saturdays so that nobody has to leave their job to attend.
That combination is a fair reading of where the shortage actually is. The MetLife survey published this week found 55% of private-sector staff already using AI while only 58% of employers formally allow it — a gap that exists partly because the people who would have to write the policy do not themselves know what the tools do.
A six-week evening course will not close that gap on its own. But a prompt library and a written workflow are exactly the artefacts a manager needs in order to sanction something rather than ignore it, and that is a more useful output than another awareness seminar.
What a prompt library actually is
The term sounds like jargon and is not. A prompt library is a shared document of the instructions that have already been found to work for a particular job — the phrasing that reliably produces a usable first draft of a supplier letter, or a summary of a sales report in the format your managing director prefers.
Its value is organisational rather than technical. Without one, every member of staff rediscovers the same instructions privately, with varying results and no way for anyone to review what is being sent out. With one, the method is visible, correctable, and survives the person who worked it out leaving.
Who this is for, and who it is not
Five years of experience and a Friday-Saturday schedule describe the intended student clearly: a mid-career manager whose team has started using these tools without being asked to.
It is not for someone who wants to work in AI. Building models is a different discipline with a different entry path, and a six-week certificate aimed at business professionals will not substitute for it. Read the title literally — for business professionals is the operative phrase, and courses are most disappointing when bought for the thing they do not claim to be.
