10,000 free spots to build AI apps without coding: a good first step, with the fine print of two 45-minute sessions

By El País (Cali) · November 5, 2026.

The tech academy Henry will open 10,000 free spots for young people and professionals to learn to build applications with artificial intelligence without any prior programming knowledge, El País reports. The only requirement is a computer with an internet connection.

The training consists of two 45-minute online classes, on Tuesday, November 10, and Wednesday, November 11, at 7:00 p.m. (Colombia time). Registration closes on November 10, the day of the first session. After signing up, participants receive access instructions by email.

The first session, “Fundamentals: judgment before code,” focuses on defining what problem you want to solve, who would need the application and which features are essential. The second, “Build: from idea to a working product with AI,” is taught by Verónica Vargas, a product lead at the Argentine company Laburen. It will show how to go from an idea to a test version, with screens, organized information and operating rules, using an AI agent (a tool that carries out tasks based on instructions).

The program is aimed mainly at recent graduates and people coming from other professional fields. Henry co-founder Federico Hernández sums up the idea this way: “AI executes; the person decides what to build, reviews and corrects.”

Our take: the most interesting part is not the number but the approach. Putting “judgment before code” is, in my view, the right diagnosis of what is happening in the job market. As AI absorbs the mechanical part of programming, value shifts to knowing which problem is worth solving, for whom and with what priorities. We see the same logic in other sectors: work does not disappear, but the work that matters changes.

It is also worth keeping our feet on the ground. Two 45-minute sessions are enough to lose your fear and build a prototype, not to become employable as a developer. The program may also work as a commercial entry point for the academy, and there is nothing wrong with that, but readers should distinguish between “trying it out” and “getting trained.” The article also gives no figures on how many of the 10,000 spots will be filled or on later outcomes.

There is also a deeper point that Hernández's own words hint at: reviewing and correcting what an agent produces requires judgment that cannot be acquired in an afternoon. In general, the risk with tools that “build apps on their own” is overconfidence in a result that seems to work but is not understood. Teaching from day one that human review is part of the job is good practice.

In the short term, the labor transition will be uneven: those with access to this kind of early literacy will start with an advantage. That is why free, large-scale initiatives matter, even modest ones: they lower the barrier to entry. In the long term, if building software becomes as accessible as writing a document, more people will be able to turn their own ideas into tools, and that points toward a society where everyone works on what they really want to solve.