Practical exercises
After reading, work with your hands. Each exercise leaves something tangible in your portfolio.
Starter
Find AI hiding in your phone
15 min
Make a language model on paper
20 min
Catch AI being wrong on purpose
25 min
Audit an AI for bias against Pakistani names
25 min
Rewrite a bad prompt into a great one
20 min
Use AI to actually understand one hard topic
30 min
Build your own five recipe prompt cookbook
30 min
Write your personal AI use code
25 min
Test AI on your mother tongue
30 min
Spot a deepfake before forwarding
30 min
The twenty second handwash, done right
15 min
Photograph three meals, audit the plate
20 min
Seven day sleep diary, phone out of the room
15 min
Make a 'when sick' card for your house
25 min
Find one trusted adult for puberty questions
20 min
Household standing water sweep, dengue edition
30 min
Audit the English you already know
20 min
Rewrite a six line email into three
25 min
Ask three clarifying questions on a real task
20 min
Write a real three paragraph cover letter
30 min
Write three graceful no scripts
25 min
Write a first message to a foreign client
25 min
Write your morning routine in eight ordered steps
15 min
Map your gali abstracted down to five important things
20 min
Log seven days, spot the recurring pattern
20 min
Photograph the parts of your phone
15 min
Type your name in English and Urdu
15 min
Speed test your internet across one day
20 min
Install and uninstall one app safely
15 min
Back up your photos to Google Drive
20 min
Fill an A4 sheet with marks: lines, dots, scribbles
15 min
Paint with red, black, and white only; name the feeling
20 min
Draw three pictures that tell one story
25 min
Clap four rhythm patterns, record each
20 min
Make a paper plane, a kite, or a small mud pot
30 min
Write a five line poem: image, image, feeling, question, image
20 min
Build a sourced-claim card from one news headline
30 min
Log five WhatsApp forwards from the family group
25 min
Find the origin of one viral SMS or WhatsApp claim
30 min
Debunk one chai and cricket correlation in your home
25 min
Write your azaad life at thirty
25 min
Open an Asaan account this week
90 min
Build the family transfer rail
45 min
Audit your phone for predatory loan apps
35 min
Build your three bucket savings system
40 min
Calculate your zakat and pick three institutions to give through
30 min
Write a five line note to your future self
15 min
Write a permission letter to yourself
25 min
Write a five line note to yourself, today
15 min
Call Umang Pakistan once, just to know the line works
20 min
Build a personal mental health emergency list
20 min
Verify the helpline number, once, while it is calm
20 min
Run a 14 day comparison fast
30 min
Run a thirty account social media mute
30 min
Walk for twenty minutes today, no phone
20 min
Send a thirty second voice note to one chosen sangat person
25 min
Record a partition memory before it is gone
45 min
Record an oral history from one elder
60 min
Read a real bill on the National Assembly website
30 min
Watch one National Assembly session live, end to end
90 min
Compare your household budget to Pakistan's federal budget
40 min
Track one month of the rupee, oil, and remittances
45 min
Research your two candidates before the next election
35 min
Verify your voter registration and find your polling station
30 min
Vet a Pakistani NGO before donating
30 min
20 min
25 min
30 min
25 min
25 min
30 min
35 min
60 min
35 min
45 min
50 min
600 min
30 min
45 min
30 min
20 min
40 min
30 min
35 min
90 min
Phone record a one minute show and tell about one object
15 min
Five minute mirror eye contact drill
15 min
Pace, pause, and projection drills with a before and after recording
20 min
Sound walk, ten letters around the house
25 min
Read aloud and record, your first listen back
30 min
Build a fifty card bilingual sight word deck
40 min
Three pace paragraph, the rhythm test
30 min
Practitioner
Earn your first 500 rupees using AI
45 min
Capstone: ship one real thing using AI to one real person
60 min
Fact check AI on one piece of Pakistani history
35 min
Help one Pakistani shopkeeper save one hour with AI
40 min
Build a one screen tool from a paper sketch
45 min
Pin your top three artifacts as a public portfolio
30 min
Track every rupee of AI use for one week
30 min
Read one hard PDF in 20 minutes with AI
35 min
Make a no AI list for one week
25 min
Write a letter to yourself ten years from now
30 min
Find one bias in an AI you actually use
30 min
Calculate your AI carbon footprint for one day
25 min
Write a system prompt for your own assistant
25 min
Use AI to help one person with a real access need
35 min
Interview three working people about AI and their job
45 min
Seven day Lahore AQI log, with mask and indoor decisions
20 min
Seven day household water meter log
25 min
Install one solar rechargeable bulb in your house
45 min
Build a one page CV from scratch
60 min
Record a mock interview with the four hardest questions
45 min
Plan and deliver a five minute talk
40 min
Map your languages and a code switching plan
30 min
Write chai making with branches and decisions
25 min
Debug your sibling's wrong step recipe
25 min
Copy a truck art panel, then invent your own
45 min
Design and photograph one mehndi pattern with symmetry
30 min
Make one functional object: phone stand, pen holder, or kite spool
60 min
Write down one belief, update it after asking three elders
30 min
Map your last family argument with arrows and counters
30 min
Vet one health claim, hakim versus doctor
35 min
Conflict without fight: a biraadari style ask, listen, restate, propose
45 min
When you are wrong: a written apology to one person you wronged this month
35 min
Collaborate with someone you do not like: a shared goal scaffold
90 min
The empathy economy: interview a Pakistani care worker
75 min
Decode a real Pakistani salary slip
30 min
Get your NTN and PSEB registration
60 min
Open a CDC investor account and place one tiny trade
50 min
Electrical safety audit: photograph the hazards in your home
60 min
Track family spending for one week and find the leak
240 min
Draft and rehearse a parent conversation script
30 min
Prepare and rehearse one honest conversation with a parent
45 min
Rehearse the parent script, out loud, before you use it
25 min
Invite three people to a small monthly sangat
35 min
Identify three people for your chosen sangat and reach out
60 min
Set up the thirty day dil check-in, tonight
30 min
Sit in on a public court hearing
90 min
Walk into a sessions court and observe one full hearing
120 min
File a Right to Information request and follow it through
75 min
Volunteer one shift at a Pakistani civil society organisation
90 min
Build a one year citizenship action plan
35 min
Write a three act outline for a five minute talk on something you know
30 min
Practice saying I do not know and redirect with a sibling
25 min
Pick a topic and debate a cousin both for and against
45 min
Persuade a parent on something small using a 90 second story
25 min
Seven days of news, one sentence each
45 min
Character and place chart for one short story
50 min
Inference Q and A on a Manto piece
45 min
Fact versus opinion log of five Pakistani columns
50 min
Author purpose tags on five varied texts
50 min
Tone analysis of three Urdu couplets
45 min
Make a computer say your name
25 min
Build a fuel cost calculator for a Lahore commute
30 min
Build a class roll call program
30 min
Write a chai recipe function
35 min
Break and fix five tiny programs
40 min
Read and explain a real open source program
35 min
Make your first three Git commits on GitHub
45 min
Fetch live PKR USD exchange rate from a free API
40 min
Build a tiny attendance database with SQLite
45 min
Builder
Thirty day household water and electricity audit, plus a 200 word op-ed
90 min
Take one home problem and apply decompose, abstract, pattern, algorithm, debug
60 min
Month long craft: design, build, photograph, write 200 words
120 min
Apply all seven thinking tools to one Pakistani news story
60 min
Write your three year financial map
60 min
Begin the 30 day mental health check in habit
30 min
Build your one year citizenship action plan
60 min
Video defend a Polymath portfolio project in five minutes
60 min
Capstone: ship one working tool to one real user
90 min
Core
Beginner
Name the feeling: a one week emotion-naming dare
30 min
When someone is sad: practice listening without fixing
25 min
Listening loop: a one week repeat-back game with a parent
40 min
Cook three things: boiled egg, fried egg, dal chawal
90 min
Sew and mend: button, hem, and a kameez patch
75 min
Build a real first aid kit and know who to call
75 min
Pedestrian survival: a five photo traffic safety log of your area
90 min
Pay one utility bill yourself: K Electric or SNGPL via window or Easypaisa
60 min