GUIDED BY ISO/IEC 42005:2025 AND THE NIST AI RISK MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK
AI System Impact Assessment
Assess How an AI System Could Affect People, and Advise Management
A mentoring program from The Tech Academy
Build an AI impact assessment you can show, and learn to defend every judgment in it.
Assess a fictional companyā€™s proposed customer-support AI tool and build one report you can explain in interviews or advisory work.
What we heard
I surveyed the people who joined my live GRC masterclass. Seven in ten were career changers, and about half had not started yet. Many told me the same thing: they needed practical work they could show and explain.
"I want to be able to defend what I have learnt and actually do the job."
"Something real which can make employers interview me."
Why I built this program
A few years ago, I referred a well-qualified career changer for an interview. Afterward, the hiring manager told me she clearly had the education, but she struggled to show that she could actually do the work and explain her decisions. That call led me to design learning around realistic cases, the pieces professionals produce, and reasoning you can defend.
You can build evidence of your skills through realistic work you can explain and defend.
The work
What you build
One assessment report for TechFlow, a fictional company whose customer-support team is weighing FlowAssist, an AI tool that drafts replies for agents to check. Each step adds one section, and the work moves through three stages:
- Establish what is being assessed: the system and its use, the information it reads, the model behind it, and the setting it would work in.
- Identify who is affected and what could happen to them: the customers, agents and others connected to the tool, whose views have been heard, and the benefits, harms, failures and misuse the evidence supports.
- Choose the measures and advise management: protections with owners, tests and follow-up, and a recommendation on whether to proceed.
An AI system impact assessment is a structured way to answer seven questions about an AI tool: what it is, what information it uses, what is known about its model, where it operates, who it touches, what it could do to them, and what to put in place.
You complete the report in one Word document in three parts: the report, your written defense of it, and the professional-use pages for your career and for advisory work.
Your report is a practice assessment of a fictional company. Present it as a case-based project.
The method
How it works
Every step follows the same three parts.
- Learn It. A short video introduces the step, and one short PDF explains the area for any AI system and shows it on TechFlow.
- Build and Defend It. You complete that step's section for TechFlow, citing the case facts by number. After Step 7, you defend the whole report once, in writing, by answering four questions.
- Use It Professionally. At the end, you turn the report into a rƩsumƩ bullet, a LinkedIn project, three interview answers, and a service description, five first-meeting questions and a scope note for a client.
Two optional podcasts go with the program: one at the start on how this work is being carried out in organizations now, so you have something to say about it in interviews and with clients, and one after Step 7 on how the seven sections connect.
The foundations
What guides the work
- ISO/IEC 42005:2025. The seven areas of the assessment follow the topics this standard describes. The program describes them in its own words; the standard itself is copyrighted and sold by ISO.
- The NIST AI Risk Management Framework. After Step 7, a mapping page shows which results in the framework each of your seven sections supports.
- The organization's own facts. Every statement in your report carries its source: what TechFlow reports, what the supplier says, what a named person said, or not yet known.
- The limits of your role. You assess and recommend. Management decides, and legal and technical questions go to specialists.
Two ways to use it
- A job inside a company. Use your report and your defense answers in interviews to show how you examine an AI tool, identify who it affects, and recommend protections.
- Advisory work. Use the same method to help organizations assess an AI tool before they adopt it, once you have the experience to offer it as a service.
Completion & recognition
What you finish with
Complete all the work in every step, and you earn more than a report:
- A Certificate of Achievement from The Tech Academy, when your complete document passes the Completion Check
- A reference letter from Dr. Shumba, your mentor, on request once you have completed all the work, describing what you built
- A place in the pathway. This program extends Assess an AI Tool for Adoption and leads into the AI Governance Build-and-Defend Studio. After all three, you should have the confidence to take ISO/IEC 42001 Foundation training and sit the exam through a training provider.
Is it for you?
Who it is for
- Entering AI governance: recent graduates and career changers who want a non-coding role and practical work to show.
- Handling AI questions at work: people in IT, security, audit, privacy, or compliance who have been asked to assess an AI tool, or expect to be.
- Preparing for advisory work: people who want to offer AI assessments to organizations as a service.
Inside the program
What you get
- Seven step PDFs and eight short videos: a welcome and one introduction per step
- Two optional podcasts: AI Impact Assessment in the Industry, and How the Seven Steps Connect
- TechFlow Case Facts: Impact Assessment, 59 numbered facts with their sources
- One Word document, AI System Impact Assessment: Report, Defense and Professional Use, with all seven sections, the defense questions and the professional-use pages
- The mapping page that shows how your work supports the NIST AI Risk Management Framework
- Office hours with Dr. Shumba every two weeks and optional Saturday group feedback during your first 90 days, for members only
- 6 months of access to all materials
Pace and enrollment
Self-paced. Step 0 plus seven numbered steps, each with one short reading and one section of writing.
Program price: $247 $197, or 2 monthly payments of $159 $109 (total $218). Your second payment is charged one month after the first.
Paying in full opens every step at once. On the payment plan, Steps 0 to 3 open with your first payment, and Steps 4 to 7 open after your second payment.
This program is self-paced. You can join any day and begin as soon as you enroll.
Your mentor
Dr. Rose Shumba has over 20 years in cybersecurity education. She is a former director of an NSA/DHS Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense. Her PECB credentials as an ISO/IEC 42001 Lead Implementer and an ISO/IEC 27001 Senior Lead Implementer are for the work she does with organizations: setting up the policies, roles, risk checks, and oversight they need to use AI responsibly, and building the systems that protect their information. She has helped hundreds of professionals move into technology and cybersecurity careers. Read Dr. Shumba's full bio.
Building and defending a realistic assessment is a practical way to turn AI governance knowledge into evidence you can explain to employers and clients.
Details and questions
After you buy:
You have access right away and can get started. We also send you a Calendly link to book Dr. Shumba's office hours.
Pace:
Self-paced. Step 0 plus seven numbered steps, each with one short reading and one section of writing.
Access and support:
6 months of access. Mentor support runs for 90 days from your enrollment date, whatever pace you study at.
Feedback:
Bring any section to Saturday group feedback by uploading it and your question by Thursday night. When you submit the finished document, the Completion Check returns one sentence on anything missing, and you revise and resubmit.
Enrollment:
Open year-round. This program is self-paced. You can join any day and begin as soon as you enroll.
Refunds:
This is a digital product, and access opens as soon as you buy. All sales are final. Please review the program details before enrolling.
Do I need a technical background?
Coding is not required. Every term is explained in plain English before it is used.
Do I need to complete Assess an AI Tool for Adoption first?
No. The case facts give you the full starting point. If you completed it, you carry your earlier report forward.
What do I need?
A computer, Microsoft Word or a program that opens Word files, a Google account for your working folder, and time for seven short readings and seven sections of writing.
Is TechFlow a real company?
TechFlow is fictional. Describe your report as a case-based project.
Does the program certify me in ISO/IEC 42005 or the NIST AI RMF?
The program awards The Tech Academy's Certificate of Achievement. NIST does not certify individuals, and this certificate is not issued or endorsed by NIST, ISO, or IEC. ISO/IEC 42005:2025 is a guidance standard, described here in the program's own words; you can buy it from ISO or your national standards body.
How is this different from your other AI governance programs?
Assess an AI Tool for Adoption asks whether an organization should adopt an AI tool and what safeguards it needs. This program asks who the tool could affect and what protections they need. The AI Governance Build-and-Defend Studio designs the organization-wide system that connects those assessments with policy, approvals, controls and review. You can take this program on its own.
How do I defend my work?
In writing, in Part Two of your document, by answering four questions: the evidence for your conclusions, the open questions and their effect, the reasons for your choices, and the decisions you leave to management.
Where do I get help?
Office hours every two weeks and Saturday group feedback during your first 90 days, and email at info@kudzaiedugroup.com. Office hours are for members only; you book them through the Calendly link sent after you buy.
Your next step
Build it. Defend it. Use it.
Build an AI impact assessment you can show, and learn to defend every judgment in it.
Program price: $247 $197, or 2 monthly payments of $159 $109 (total $218). Your second payment is charged one month after the first.
Iron sharpens iron, Dr. Rose Shumba
