This spring, students in Gen-AI Bootcamp, an online course offered through Berkeley Startup Studio. In just four weeks, students learned how to build and launch their own web app from scratch using AI. They earned the UC Berkeley Gen-AI Developer Certificate following their completion of the course.
We followed up with Vanessa He, Alex Martelli, and Etaf Abdallah to learn more about their course takeaways and their accomplishments.
Q&A: Vanessa He
What did you build during the Gen-AI Bootcamp, and what problem or need inspired your idea?
I built the AI Due Diligence (DD) Copilot during the Gen-AI Bootcamp and shipped it to our paid customers to create a global “Twitter” for founders, funders, fellows, solving three key challenges:
(1) Traditionally, investors spend weeks or months evaluating startup data rooms; now, with our platform, they can find answers in seconds through a simple chat and generate comprehensive DD reports in minutes with a single click.
(2) This platform addresses capital raising challenges by helping startups prepare investor-ready data rooms and receive feedback from global investors through a streamlined, single DD process.
(3) MBA students gain mentorship and real-world deal evaluation experience by participating in investors’ DD processes on our platform, helping them break into investment careers.
What was your biggest takeaway from the bootcamp?
AI tools, especially Lovable, empower non-technical founders to build an MVP in just a few days to a week. This tool enables them to showcase their vision with a working prototype, demonstrating the ability to execute beyond an idea, attract early customers, and identify capable technical co-founders who can iterate rapidly and ship products swiftly. Impressed by the MVP, several software engineers from Google and Salesforce are joining us to help scale the product into an enterprise-grade solution.
In addition, the support of the community of this Gen-AI Bootcamp was critical to builders and founders at their earliest stage, helping them build confidence, keep moving, and continue building, especially when situations are not ideal. Sepehr, the instructor of this course, always believed in us and offered his support throughout the process of creating and building our ideas.
How has this bootcamp changed the way you think about building technology or launching new ideas?
With a background in investment and corporate finance, I came to this course with zero coding experience—drawn in by the course title, From Idea to App. Under the pressure of shipping a product to already paying customers within a week, I decided to take the leap. The result? The course delivered exactly as promised. Amazing. With that being said, this bootcamp proves a trend: using AI tools to build AI tools, even by non-technical founders, within weeks. While people may have questions about how scalable this can be, those questions may be addressed by other AI tools very soon.
Today, Lovable has made it much easier to get started, iterate, and quickly demonstrate ideas. Learning how to adapt and leverage these tools is now part of the skill set needed to launch new ideas. I’m fully positive about this shift—embracing it with an open mind is the only way to stay current and continue building in this rapidly evolving landscape.
Q&A: Alex Martelli
What did you build during the Gen-AI Bootcamp, and what problem or need inspired your idea?
I built a platform for a mental health patient to be able to chat with a chatbot, while the entire conversation is being supervised by a licensed therapist. The therapist can see the chat between the patient and the chatbot, participate in the chat, and give the chatbot special instructions on how to interact with the patient.
I was inspired to build this platform because I am exploring a startup idea that combines live therapist sessions with a conversational AI trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) between sessions. I want to bring the latest and greatest AI tools into use in therapy clinical practice to improve outcomes with mental health patients.
What was your biggest takeaway from the bootcamp?
My biggest takeaways were technical—we did a good deep dive into how lovable.dev works and how vibe coding, AI-based coding, and other automated tools can be used to start a software-enabled business.
How has this bootcamp changed the way you think about building technology or launching new ideas?
I think that simple technology platforms can now be built without the need for an experienced software engineer, allowing entrepreneurs to launch new ideas much more quickly and easily. This course makes my goal to launch this startup and get funding feel much more attainable.
Q&A: Etaf Abdallah
What did you build during the Gen-AI Bootcamp, and what problem or need inspired your idea?
I built Forkast Food, which is an AI food-powered web assistant that helps users decide what to cook based on the ingredients they have. Users may upload a picture of their fridge or type in the ingredients, and the app suggests recipes based on what’s available. My idea came from the common problem of food waste. I wanted to make it easier to reduce food waste and make cooking an easy task.
What was your biggest takeaway from the bootcamp?
My biggest takeaway was learning how to use AI tools effectively. I integrated APIs securely and built AI features without needing to code everything from scratch. You can build solutions easily with the right tools.
How has this bootcamp changed the way you think about building technology or launching new ideas?
This bootcamp showed me that you don’t need to be an expert to launch an idea as long as you have the right resources and know how to use them. The bootcamp was very helpful, the instructor was always there giving feedback, and everyone was determined to launch a product in only four weeks.