An Ask Mona Academy training session led by Valentin Schmite for directors and teaching teams from the Alliances Françaises in the Caribbean: how can an entire network be trained in two days, and how can each organisation gain the reflexes to do more with its existing teams?
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The Alliances Françaises in the Caribbean are independent non-profit organisations run by highly versatile teams. They teach French, produce communication materials, prepare funding applications and organise cultural events. Spread across several islands, they work with similar resources and share a long-term cultural and linguistic mission.
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On 5 and 6 May 2026, Valentin Schmite, CEO of Ask Mona and lecturer at Sciences Po, brought together directors and teaching teams from five Alliances Françaises in the Caribbean for two days of training. Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Kitts and Nevis: different territories, different contexts, but the same day-to-day challenges, and a shared decision to train together.

Why train now?

For the Alliances Françaises, the goal was to identify tools that could save time for teams who often handle several roles at once: teaching, communication, fundraising and cultural project management.
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The objective of the training was above all practical: to understand where artificial intelligence could genuinely bring value to the teams’ daily work, and to leave with shared methods and reference points, rather than letting each organisation experiment in isolation.
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A training programme built around real use cases

The training was structured in two parts. The first focused on understanding how language models work, what they can do, the ethical and environmental issues they raise, and the wider landscape of tools available beyond ChatGPT. The second was entirely hands-on, with exercises designed around real situations encountered by the teams.

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“I really appreciated discovering the new features of certain generative AI systems, such as the ability to create structured texts based on a visual identity. This has a real impact on my efficiency when creating presentations, training materials, communication projects and more.”
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– Clovis Lemée, Executive Director of the Alliance Française of Jamaica
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What makes the Ask Mona Academy approach specific is that tools are selected according to the professions represented, and the exercises are based on concrete situations. Each participant leaves with a practical toolkit: reusable prompt templates, checklists, a library of use cases adapted to the constraints of the Alliances Françaises and, above all, a personal three-month integration plan.

What changed in two days

The prompt engineering methodology was the learning that left the strongest impression. Structuring a request to an AI tool, rather than phrasing it instinctively, is the simple reflex that turns the technology from a curiosity into a professional tool.

“The method is very effective and helps structure requests and prompts. It can be applied directly within our small Alliances Françaises.”
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– Clovis Lemée, Executive Director of the Alliance Française of Jamaica
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Using this method, participants identified several concrete applications for their daily work: producing communication visuals internally, drafting administrative documents, preparing responses to calls for projects, and summarising documentary corpora. These are tasks shared by all the Alliances Françaises in the region, and AI can now help support them.
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Beyond use cases, the two days also opened up a broader perspective on the technology. As Clovis Lemée explains:

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“The training opened the door to this new technology, gave us a better understanding of the professional, environmental and ethical issues linked to its use, and provided ready-to-use tools adapted to our services.”
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What this case says to all cultural networks

This training did more than help five Alliances Françaises discover new tools. It created a shared language around artificial intelligence and laid the foundations for common practices across a network.
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The reflexes acquired over these two days did not remain within a single organisation. They were carried back to several territories, with teams now able to experiment from a shared foundation.
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Whether you lead a museum network, a cultural federation, a group of educational institutions or a multi-site organisation, the question is often the same: how can you quickly align teams around a shared approach to AI?
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That is precisely the ambition of Ask Mona Academy: to build a common understanding of artificial intelligence within your teams, while starting from the realities on the ground that are specific to each organisation.