Haifa has the most AI-fluent workforce on earth and thousands of capable people the old economy left behind. Citizen AI turns them into builders, and connects them to real, well-paid work.
The old engine stalled. Israeli tech is cutting hard, AI is taking the routine and entry-level work first, and no country can out-spend the US and China on AI compute. The one edge Israel keeps is people who can build. So the move is not to wait for the boom, it is to retrain the displaced into AI-enabled builders, in the one city ready to prove it can be done.
Not another learn-to-code bootcamp. Citizen AI teaches mid-career and displaced adults, olim and non-engineers to build with AI: agents, automations and real tools. It is paid, so people between jobs can afford to join, and every module ends in something shipped, not a certificate.
Laid-off engineers, PMs, QA, support and ops from the 2026 cuts, with deep domain knowledge and no need for a junior-dev reset.
New graduates who cannot break in, who need to arrive AI-native instead of sending 700 resumes for 20 roles.
Mid-career professionals from Russia, Ukraine, France and North America, with skills and language barriers but no tech pathway today.
Shop, clinic and service-business owners who need AI leverage, not a computer-science degree.
A working AI workspace from day one, and the operator mindset: build with AI, do not compete against it.
Real tools, week after week: a personal AI system, then agents, automations and no-code AI apps for real use.
An AI system that solves a real employer or city problem, built inside a host organization, then a revenue motion and Demo Day.
Built from proven material The curriculum draws on Yuri Kruman's own work: the book Closing the AI Wage Gap, the 12-week Career Beast Mode program and a battle-tested Claude setup protocol.
The point is not a course. It is a job. Building with AI is one of the three fastest-growing job families in the world (WEF 2025), it pays a large and rising premium, and increasingly it is hired on proof of what you have built, not on a computer-science degree. That is what makes a real path possible for people starting over.
| Role | What you build | Israel (NIS/mo) | Global (USD/yr) | Entry bar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No-code / automation builder | Agents and automations that do the work of many inside a business function | ~25-40K | ~$86-123K | Lowest: portfolio, no degree |
| Applied AI / app developer | Customer-facing AI apps, RAG systems and assistants | ~30-43K | ~$100-150K | Portfolio + some coding |
| AI solutions / implementation engineer | Scopes and ships AI into real operations, the top enterprise hire | ~40K+ | ~$120-140K | Domain + AI fluency |
| RAG / AI agent developer | Retrieval-augmented and agentic systems | ~43K | ~$100-160K | Portfolio, no PhD |
| AI-augmented operator | Your existing role, done with AI leverage | in-role | +70% YoY | Your experience + AI skills |
| Independent AI builder | Contract and freelance builds for clients anywhere, from Haifa | market | $50-200+/hr | Portfolio + track record |
Read this honestly. These are the applied tier, where enterprise hiring volume actually is and where a retrained adult can realistically land. The elite ML-research tier pays far more but needs a computer-science or quant degree, so it is not this program's destination. Israel figures are directional, from H1-2025 recruiter reports (Globes, GotFriends, Team8); global figures are from salary aggregators (Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, Jobicy) and are self-reported. For scale: the overall Israeli tech average was NIS 39,810/month in H1 2025 and AI roles topped the table, with generative-AI developers averaging NIS 46,755.
Demand is real AI Engineer is the #1 fastest-growing job in the US, up 143% year on year (LinkedIn, 2026). In Israel, AI roles top the tech salary table amid a documented talent shortage, and Nvidia's Kiryat Tivon campus is about to pull thousands of jobs to the north, minutes from Haifa.
The honest part The old "junior developer" door is narrowing as AI absorbs entry-level work. So the position that wins is not junior coder, it is an AI builder who ships. That is exactly what this program makes you.
The real pathHackathons are the heartbeat of Citizen AI: weekend build sprints where residents, cohorts and newcomers ship real AI tools for real Haifa and employer problems. They are the front door, the showcase and the hiring floor all at once.
Anyone can show up and build something with AI in a weekend. No prerequisites. The hackathon is how people discover they can do this, and how the program fills its cohorts.
Real tools, judged and demoed in public, on real city and business briefs. It is the proof the movement is working, and the reason press, funders and partners keep showing up.
Employers sponsor briefs, scout builders and hand out prizes and interviews. A hackathon is the cheapest way a company ever auditions AI talent, and where graduates get found.
Every stage is gated on the last one's measured proof, so the second cohort is paid for by the first cohort's results. The evidence is the whole strategy.
Monthly builder evenings, open to all, hosted on Technion turf. Low-risk, high-signal, and the top of the funnel.
A weekend build on real briefs, with employer sponsors scouting and the first cohort applicants surfacing.
~24 learners, cross-sector, paid, placed. Measured by a third party, to a standard no incumbent meets.
Two tracks, then graduate-facilitators, aligned to the Kiryat Tivon hiring ramp.
Citizen AI does not improvise. It borrows the spine from Singapore's AI Apprenticeship Programme (paid, employer-embedded, placement over 90%), the funding and evidence discipline from Year Up in the US (the one such program with randomized proof of durable wage gains), and the inclusion-first placement work of France's Simplon. And it commits to third-party, longitudinal outcome measurement from the first cohort, because verified evidence is the scarcest asset in this field and the fastest way to earn the next funder.
The Technion is Haifa's credibility anchor and its talent engine. The first move is deliberately small and easy to say yes to: host Citizen AI on your turf, and let the city see what its people can build.
Citizen AI is not a theory. Its founder, Yuri Kruman, made the corporate-to-AI-builder transition the program teaches, from three chief people officer seats into building with AI, in public. He is a Top-6 global HR thought leader on the future of work, wrote the books that are the program's spine, already built the course it runs on, has raised high-net-worth money in this exact city, and lives in Haifa.
IIA Human Capital Fund matched funding, built for exactly this population
Google.org, Rashi, Edmond de Rothschild and diaspora philanthropy
Employers who host projects, sponsor hackathons and hire
Technion, Mosaic, Tsofen for turf, thesis and cross-sector reach
Whether you want to learn, host, hire or fund, the movement starts with a conversation.