Discord experts

Guest Experts

Weekly invited experts who answer member questions and leave a recap for the Prompthon community.

Guest expert history

Past invited experts by week, with conversation recaps when available.

Jun 15 - Jun 22

Jianwei

Product Manager, GridIn

As a Product Manager at GridIn, Jianwei studies how repository activity and topic movement can help builders make better decisions about what to learn, prototype, compare, and ship.

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The best project ideas often appear where technical momentum, user pain, and implementation feasibility overlap.

Dimension suggestions

Vision: Use repository trends to identify emerging builder habits. Ask what developers are repeatedly automating, connecting, or simplifying.
Harness: Pick one signal and validate it with three sources: repository behavior, user discussion, and comparable products.
Forge: Build a small prototype inspired by one open-source trend. Keep the scope narrow enough to finish and explain clearly.
Charisma: Frame your prototype as a response to a visible trend. Explain the signal, the user pain, and why your version matters.

Jun 8 - Jun 15

Jianwei

Product Manager, GridIn

Website GridIn

As a Product Manager at GridIn, Jianwei studies how repository activity and topic movement can help builders make better decisions about what to learn, prototype, compare, and ship.

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The best project ideas often appear where technical momentum, user pain, and implementation feasibility overlap.

Dimension suggestions

Vision: Use repository trends to identify emerging builder habits. Ask what developers are repeatedly automating, connecting, or simplifying.
Harness: Pick one signal and validate it with three sources: repository behavior, user discussion, and comparable products.
Forge: Build a small prototype inspired by one open-source trend. Keep the scope narrow enough to finish and explain clearly.
Charisma: Frame your prototype as a response to a visible trend. Explain the signal, the user pain, and why your version matters.

Jun 1 - Jun 8

Jianwei

Product Manager, GridIn

Website GridIn

Jianwei works on GridIn, a GitHub intelligence product that helps users explore repository trends, compare technical directions, and understand where open-source attention is concentrating.

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Open-source ranking becomes useful only when it supports judgment: what is real, what is early, what is noisy, and what is worth building around.

Dimension suggestions

Vision: Compare several repositories in the same topic and infer the larger product direction behind them. What workflow are they all trying to change?
Harness: Build a repeatable comparison checklist: activity, documentation, issue quality, use case clarity, integration surface, and community response.
Forge: Create a one-page product teardown for one repository: target user, core value, missing features, risks, and one possible extension.
Charisma: Share your teardown with the community in a concise format. Focus on helping others understand the product opportunity, not just the technical details.

May 25 - Jun 1

Jianwei

Product Manager, GridIn

Website GridIn

Jianwei is a Product Manager at GridIn, a product that turns GitHub repository activity, topic movement, and developer attention into practical signals for builders, students, and early-stage teams.

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A good builder does not only ask what is popular today. They ask what developer behavior is quietly revealing about the next practical workflow.

Dimension suggestions

Vision: Look at GitHub topics as weak signals of future product categories. Ask which tools are gaining attention because they solve a real workflow pain, not because they are briefly fashionable.
Harness: Create a weekly research routine: pick one AI topic, compare the top repositories, inspect README quality, check recent commits, and summarize what changed.
Forge: Turn one trending repository into a small working demo, internal note, or product teardown. The goal is not passive reading; it is converting signal into artifact.
Charisma: Practice explaining why a repository matters in plain language. A useful product thinker can translate developer momentum into a story non-engineers can understand.

May 18 - May 25

Jeff Xu

Founder, PowerA

Website PowerA

As Founder of PowerA, Jeff Xu works at the intersection of energy systems, AI optimization, and operational decision support, where reliability, explainability, and system constraints matter as much as model capability.

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In critical infrastructure, AI should be designed as decision support, not unchecked autonomy.

Dimension suggestions

Vision: Think about AI as part of an operating system for infrastructure. The opportunity is large, but reliability and governance shape what can actually be deployed.
Harness: Document assumptions, data sources, decision boundaries, and failure modes before trusting any recommendation.
Forge: Create a simple decision-support flow that includes model output, confidence, explanation, operator override, and audit log.
Charisma: Communicate AI risk without fearmongering. The strongest message is disciplined: what the AI sees, what it does not see, and where humans remain accountable.

May 11 - May 18

Jeff Xu

Founder, PowerA

Website PowerA

Jeff Xu leads PowerA, an energy technology company applying AI to predictive optimization and real-time operational decision support for energy infrastructure.

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A forecast is not a product until it changes a decision. Predictive optimization must connect model output to operational action.

Dimension suggestions

Vision: Look beyond model accuracy. Ask what decision the forecast supports, who owns the decision, and what failure would cost.
Harness: Practice designing recommendation logic with guardrails: threshold, confidence, exception handling, escalation, and human approval.
Forge: Build a mock recommendation engine that converts demand, capacity, and asset condition into an action suggestion.
Charisma: When presenting an AI recommendation, include the why. Operators need rationale, not just an answer.

May 4 - May 11

Jeff Xu

Founder, PowerA

Website PowerA

Jeff Xu is the Founder of PowerA, an energy technology company focused on AI-driven asset orchestration, predictive optimization, and operational decision support across complex infrastructure environments.

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Energy AI is not just about prediction. It is about coordinating decisions across physical assets, operational constraints, and reliability expectations.

Dimension suggestions

Vision: Study energy infrastructure as a system of connected decisions. Ask where AI can improve timing, coordination, and visibility rather than merely generate text.
Harness: Map an operational workflow into inputs, constraints, decisions, risks, and human review points. This is the foundation of responsible AI orchestration.
Forge: Prototype a simplified energy asset dashboard using mock data: asset status, predicted demand, recommended action, and confidence level.
Charisma: Explain energy AI through a concrete scenario. For example: what should an operator know before choosing whether to charge, discharge, reroute, delay, or inspect an asset?

Apr 27 - May 4

Daniel Pan

Director, Agentize.AI

Website Agentize.AI Agentizer

Daniel Pan is the Director of Agentize.AI, which trains and supervises AI-native builders to take ownership of real product delivery across features, iterations, and client-facing outcomes.

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The next generation of builders will be judged less by whether they can use AI and more by whether they can use AI to own outcomes.

Dimension suggestions

Vision: Define your growth path around ownership: from task execution, to feature delivery, to product judgment, to client-facing responsibility.
Harness: Use AI with structure. Maintain task boards, commits, README updates, test notes, and review logs so your work remains inspectable.
Forge: Ship a complete small product slice: landing page, core workflow, data model, deployment, and short demo script.
Charisma: Present yourself as an AI-native builder by showing artifacts. A portfolio with working demos, decision notes, and clear explanations is stronger than a list of tools.

Apr 20 - Apr 27

Daniel Pan

Director, Agentize.AI

Website Agentize.AI Agentizer

Daniel Pan is the Director of Agentize.AI, where emerging engineers learn to use AI-native tools under senior guidance to deliver real product work with professional standards.

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AI-native delivery is not magic. It is a workflow discipline: clarify intent, decompose the problem, generate options, review outputs, and ship responsibly.

Dimension suggestions

Vision: Look at AI as a new operating model for product development, not only as a writing or coding assistant.
Harness: Create a delivery checklist for every AI-assisted feature: requirement, task breakdown, generated output, human review, test, deployment, and documentation.
Forge: Build one feature with AI assistance and document every step. The artifact should include not only the code, but also the decision trail.
Charisma: When presenting AI-assisted work, show your judgment. Explain what you accepted, what you rejected, and what you changed.

Apr 13 - Apr 20

Daniel Pan

Director, Agentize.AI

Website Agentize.AI Agentizer

Daniel Pan is the Director of Agentize.AI, an AI-native software delivery company that helps organizations delegate product architecture, design, implementation, and deployment through trained Agentizers supported by senior experts.

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The AI-native team is not just a faster version of the old team. It changes how product intent is translated into working software.

Dimension suggestions

Vision: Study how AI changes team structure. Ask which roles become broader, which handoffs disappear, and where senior judgment becomes more important.
Harness: Practice decomposing a product request into architecture, interface, data, implementation, testing, deployment, and review tasks.
Forge: Use AI tools to ship a small end-to-end feature, but keep human responsibility for requirements, review, and final quality.
Charisma: Explain the Agentizer idea to a non-technical founder: one AI-native builder can coordinate more of the product lifecycle, but still needs standards and oversight.