From Zero to Agent

NYU Shanghai · Creative + Innovation · AI+

From Zeroto Agent

A two-day intensive workshop where students learned to build, test, and publish products with coding agents.

September 12–13, 2026NYU Shanghai
Explore 18 student builds
Workshop participants and organizers together at the end of From Zero to Agent
WORKSHOP PARTICIPANTS AND ORGANIZERS
02days
24in-person participants
60+interested students
05organizers

01 · Context

Creative + Innovation’s AI+ initiative

A shared home for learning, building, and experimenting with AI

AI+ brings together courses, workshops, and hands-on activities at the intersection of artificial intelligence and creative practice.

Students approach AI as both a practical tool and a force reshaping creativity, trust, business, entrepreneurship, and organizational life.

The finish line
Ship one focused, working product—and be ready to show what it does.

By Sunday afternoon, students had scoped a real use case, built its core experience with coding agents, tested it with peers, deployed it to a live URL, and prepared a short demo. The eighteen projects below are the record of that work.

02 · The weekend

Learn the loop. Build twice. Ship something real.

The first day created a common method. The second asked each student to use it on a problem they cared about.

Day 1See + practice

A complete build loop, together

Students moved from language-model basics and agent feedback loops into product briefs, acceptance criteria, debugging, Git, and deployment. Shared examples included an AI Research Studio and a News Radar + Web Explorer, built one working layer at a time.

  1. MorningAI foundations, agents, product thinking, and debugging
  2. AfternoonGuided build, structured outputs, tests, and live deployment
  3. ClosePartner demo with one observed failure and one verified fix
Day 2Transfer + ship

An independent product by 5 PM

Each student narrowed an idea to one user, one recurring problem, a manageable input, and a visible result. Timed milestones protected the core workflow before user testing, documentation, and final demos.

  1. 08:25Scope approved
  2. 10:15Core function working
  3. 14:10Live URL
  4. 16:10README and demo ready

The method students can repeat

The build loop

  1. 01Define
  2. 02Describe
  3. 03Inspect
  4. 04Debug
  5. 05Commit
  6. 06Deploy
  7. 07Iterate

The agent accelerates implementation. The student remains responsible for purpose, evidence, boundaries, and quality.

03 · Working principles

What counted as progress

01

Scope

Name one user, one problem, one input, and one visible result.

02

Direct

Give the coding agent one meaningful increment with clear constraints.

03

Verify

Use observable behavior, acceptance criteria, and repeatable tests.

04

Ship

Save a stable checkpoint, deploy it, test the live link, and explain the limits.

04 · Student builds

Eighteen ideas, live by Sunday

The gallery ranges from career and travel tools to cultural archives, learning companions, and personal decision aids. Each card opens the student’s original live project.

01Music & community

MusicPalz

Shan Leo Yong

A private music profile with transparent friendship matches based on taste.

Open live project
02Careers

IMB Career Finder

Naomi Chang

Internships and early-career roles matched to an Interactive Media and Business background.

Open live project
03Careers

Graduate Salary Tracker

Michelle Fung

Salary estimates that make early-career role comparisons easier to explore.

Open live project
04Travel

Flight Finder

Melody Xie

A flight discovery tool for comparing prepared itineraries across flexible dates.

Open live project
05Books

Book Decision Tool

Echo Fan

A concise, personalized shortlist of books drawn from Open Library.

Open live project
06Learning

FoundIt

Samira

A calm Socratic guide for beginners debugging Python and JavaScript.

Open live project
07Portfolio

Interactive Resume

Yanrou Gao

An evidence-based resume and portfolio that makes projects and credentials explorable.

Open live project
08Food & place

Burgas Food Match

Danaya

Restaurant and dish matches in Burgas based on a visitor’s food profile.

Open live project
09Fashion

FORM / ARCHIVE

Sicheng Song

A bilingual archive of selected Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo collections.

Open live project
10Language learning

Daily Chinese Read

Matthew

A focused news reader designed for advanced Mandarin learners.

Open live project
11Live music

Soundcheck

Jae Huang

A practical workspace for preparing for concerts.

Open live project
12Travel

Flight Price Explorer

Elena Yan

Live flight offers organized by route, date, cabin, travelers, and stops.

Open live project
13Nutrition

Precimac 精点

Theo Wu

Exact nutrition targets turned into meal plans and copyable grocery lists.

Open live project
14Travel

Lefei TOUR

Lefei Yu

Curated journeys and partner trips, selected and arranged with care.

Open live project
15Film

The Acquisition Edit

Nicholas Linz

An editorial notebook for tracking independent film acquisitions.

Open live project
16Advertising

Ad2Ad

Sara

A comparison tool for seeing how one product is advertised across cultural markets.

Open live project
17Consumer decisions

Mindful Fibers

Mailys Oka

A transparent, evidence-based assessment of clothing product quality.

Open live project
18Research

PropTech Brief

Bo Gu

A focused briefing tool for researching property technology.

Open live project

05 · People

Organized by

We are grateful for the support of C+I and NYU Shanghai Arts and Sciences.