Talk

Guest talk on Artificial Intelligence at TEVTA Woodworking Service Centre, Rawalpindi

My first talk as a guest speaker: thirty minutes on AI for students learning AutoCAD, woodworking and technology at the Govt. Woodworking Service Centre (TEVTA) Rawalpindi, streamed live on Facebook.

30 September 2026, 12:00 noon
Govt. Woodworking Service Centre (TEVTA), Computer Lab, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Guest speaker on Artificial Intelligence

6Parts in the session
33Slides, built around real examples
LiveStreamed on Facebook
1stTalk as a guest speaker

The room and the brief

The audience was students learning AutoCAD, woodworking and technology, most with a matric or a diploma, with a Facebook Live stream running on top. So I skipped the big words and built every part of the session around their own work: cabinets, cut lists, plywood, AutoCAD.

It opened with a game

I showed two photos of chairs and asked the room which one was real. Hands went up for A, then for B. The answer: neither. AI made both pictures in under a minute. That is generative AI, and it got everyone’s attention before I had said who I was.

What we covered

01Emerging AI technologiesWhat AI is, explained as an apprentice who learns by watching his master build 100 cabinets. Generative AI, agents, voice AI, AI vision and on-device AI.
02Generative AI and AI agentsA chatbot answers; an agent acts. I walked through a real agent I built: the QuickComm hotel system that hears, understands, decides, acts and tracks.
03Prompt engineeringThe 4-part prompt (who you are, what you want, details, format), a live "fix this prompt" exercise with the room, and 5 tricks for better answers.
04AI-assisted data analysisSix months of workshop data pasted into Gemini: it found the month with the most plywood waste in seconds, by writing and running Python behind the scenes.
05AI in design and contentFrom a pencil sketch to a 3D model to CNC, an AutoCAD command written by AI, client renders, and posts and posters made with AI.
06Future skills and careersWhere the jobs are, the skills that will matter, and the answer to "Will AI take my job?"

Moments from the session

A bookshelf cut list in five seconds: 180 cm tall, 80 cm wide, 30 cm deep, 4 shelves, 18 mm plywood. Then I asked the room to check the AI: an 80 cm shelf minus two 1.8 cm sides is 76.4 cm. This time the AI was right, but the point stood: AI can make mistakes, so measure twice, cut once.

(defun c:CABINET ( / )
  (setvar "CMDECHO" 0)
  (command "_.RECTANG" "0,0" "600,720")      ; outer cabinet
  (command "_.RECTANG" "18,18" "582,702")    ; 18 mm boards
  (command "_.RECTANG" "18,351" "582,369")   ; middle shelf
  (setvar "CMDECHO" 1)
  (princ)
)

An AutoCAD command written by AI in one prompt: draw a cabinet front 600 mm wide, 720 mm tall, 18 mm boards, one shelf.

The message I left them with

This has happened before. Before 1982, every drawing was done by hand. AutoCAD arrived, and the people who learned it moved ahead. AI is the same moment, and these students are early.

AI won’t replace you. But a person who uses AI will replace one who doesn’t.

What I learned from my first time on stage

Students don’t need theory. They need one example from their own work. Show a woodworking student AI making a cut list for a bookshelf and they lean in. Show them a chart about "the future of AI" and you lose them.