SEBA: Where 95 Young Farmers Keep Learning Between Sessions
When a training day ends, the hardest part of a leadership programme begins. The notes go into a drawer. Good intentions meet the harvest calendar. The next session starts almost from scratch.
SEBA was built for that gap.
This autumn, SEBA became the digital space for 95 young farmers and agribusiness professionals in the eighth edition of Tineri Lideri pentru Agricultură (TLA), the leadership programme of Clubul Fermierilor Români, with Fundația LEADERS as educational and implementation partner. Waiheke AI provides the platform.
A name with a history
SEBA started as Sebastian, an AI coach we built for the programme's business marathon in 2025. The name stayed. Today the four letters describe what the platform holds together:
- S for Sine: the self, and each participant's personal path.
- E for Echipă: the team, and the business marathon they work on together.
- B for Breaslă: the old Romanian word for a craftsmen's guild, the community of the programme.
- A for AI: a partner for thinking, never the one who decides.
Self: one path, kept alive
Participants choose a small number of development goals that matter to them, each with a clear sign of what success looks like. They come back to them at a few points along the programme: at the start, along the way, and at the end. They see what changed and what to adjust.
Course notes stay with the person who wrote them, including a photo of the flipchart. Self-assessment helps them see themselves clearly. It is not a grade and not a certificate.
Team: a business plan, written for real
In the business marathon, teams write their plan together in one shared space and split the work so everyone can see who is doing what. Mentors give feedback on what the team actually wrote, not in general.
Guild: nobody grows alone
Young farmers often work far from each other. SEBA shows who else is in the programme, where they farm and what they work on. Peer mentoring keeps one-to-one conversations continuous from one meeting to the next. Participants decide what they share. Private notes stay private.
AI as a thinking partner
In SEBA, AI asks more than it answers. A coach like Sebastian does not hand over a solution. It asks the question that helps a young manager see why he keeps taking decisions back from his team. AI can propose a next step, but nothing enters a participant's plan without their yes.
AI in SEBA does not grade people, does not diagnose and does not decide. The people of the programme keep the judgement: participants, mentors, trainers and the learning team.
What we will watch
More clicks and more tasks are not the goal. We want to see whether goals stay alive between sessions, whether feedback leads to action, and whether teams arrive at the final pitch with a plan they wrote themselves. It is early, and we will share what we learn honestly, including what does not work.
Our thanks go to Clubul Fermierilor Români and Fundația LEADERS for the trust, and to the 95 participants of TLA8, who will shape SEBA more than we will.
Screens shown in this article use illustrative data.