FairByDesign · AI Skills & Tools
Retool for the work emerging around AI.
AI is changing work across technology, cybersecurity, data, governance, operations and leadership. The challenge is rarely a lack of information — it is scattered across tools, repositories, books, courses, standards, research and job descriptions.
FairByDesign helps you build a working map. Explore the areas professionals increasingly need to understand, see selected beginner resources, and join the publications that keep the map current.
Free decision tools — the FairByDesign App Hub
Free, no-account tools that help you make and defend AI decisions: check whether a problem needs AI at all, score a use case, test governance readiness, and generate a decision brief — each with a downloadable result.
Courses by FairByDesign
Go deeper with FairByDesign courses — structured, practical training in AI governance, security and control.
Sovereign AI Foundations (SAF-101)
The essential grounding: what sovereign AI is, and how to keep control. $499
Executive AI Decision Program
For leaders making AI decisions with evidence and accountability. $499
Leadership, Procurement & Vendor Control (SAP-201)
Buy, govern and control AI vendors without losing oversight. $599
Sensitive Data & Regulated Operations (SAR-401)
Run AI safely where data is sensitive and the rules are strict. $795
Toolsets & Control Stack (SAT-301)
The hands-on control stack for people who build with AI. $995
Continuous Assurance (SAC-501)
Keep AI controls working over time — assurance that lasts. $1,495
Start with the landscape
AI systems and open-source tooling
Understand models, local AI, model serving, agents, orchestration and the tools used to connect AI to real workflows.
Cybersecurity and AI security
Understand identity, tool permissions, prompt injection, agent security, supply-chain risk, red teaming and incident evidence.
Data, metadata and observability
Understand how data, lineage, traces, logs, metrics and metadata make AI systems measurable and reconstructable.
Evaluation and measurement
Understand how organizations evaluate performance, reliability, bias, security, usefulness and changing outcomes.
Operational governance and assurance
Understand how policies become controls, approval gates, human decisions, evidence and accountable operating processes.
Career transition and advancement
Understand emerging role families, transferable skills and the resources professionals can use to retool.
Selected beginner resources
A small, free sample from the FairByDesign Retooling Library — official documentation, open-source tools and beginner courses. Members get the full, continuously maintained library.
Designing Machine Learning Systems
A system-level guide to building and operating production ML.
Why it matters: The best single-book view of operating AI in production.
Open resource (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed: 2026-09-02
Elements of AI
A free, non-technical introduction to what AI is and how it affects society.
Why it matters: The best zero-cost starting point for professionals who need shared vocabulary before going deeper into tools, security or governance.
Open resource (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed: 2026-09-02
Hugging Face LLM Course
The standard free course on working with transformers and open models.
Why it matters: The most widely used practical introduction to building with open models.
Open resource (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed: 2026-09-02
Microsoft AI for Beginners
An open 12-week curriculum covering classic and modern AI with hands-on lessons.
Why it matters: A structured, free path that gives individuals and teams a common technical baseline.
Open resource (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed: 2026-09-02
Microsoft Generative AI for Beginners
An open 21-lesson course on building with generative AI.
Why it matters: Practical, current and free — a direct on-ramp to LLM application work.
Open resource (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed: 2026-09-02
NIST AI Risk Management Framework
The reference risk-management framework for AI (Govern, Map, Measure, Manage).
Why it matters: A primary source many organisations map their AI governance to.
Open resource (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed: 2026-09-02
Ollama documentation
Docs for running open LLMs locally with a simple CLI and API.
Why it matters: The easiest entry point to private, local model use without sending data to a provider.
Open resource (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed: 2026-09-02
OpenTelemetry documentation
The vendor-neutral standard for traces, metrics and logs.
Why it matters: The raw material of both operations and governance evidence.
Open resource (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed: 2026-09-02
OWASP Top 10 for LLM Applications (2025)
The community reference for the top LLM application security risks.
Why it matters: A shared vocabulary for LLM risk that security and engineering can both use.
Open resource (opens in a new tab)
Last reviewed: 2026-09-02
No resources match those filters.
A taste of the full library
A sample of the curated open-source tools organized inside Mercury Intelligence. Each one is selected, explained and mapped to your retooling path in the library.
Sigstore
Sign and verify software artifacts so you can prove what is running is what you shipped.
OpenSSF Scorecard
Automated checks that score the security health of any open-source project.
Promptfoo
Test, compare and red-team LLM prompts and outputs before they ship.
garak
An open-source scanner that probes language models for security and safety weaknesses.
Microsoft PyRIT
A toolkit for red-teaming generative-AI systems for real-world risk.
MLflow
Track experiments, models and deployments across the machine-learning lifecycle.
Keep building your map
The Mercury Brief
Follow the public signals shaping AI, cybersecurity, data, governance and institutional life. The Mercury Brief also points readers toward selected tools, books, learning resources and emerging skill signals.
Mercury Intelligence — $10/month
The resources above are a preview of what is inside. Membership gives you the full curated library:
- The research archive — investigative reporting, OSINT and governance analysis, added every week.
- The curated AI Retooling Library — 94+ curated tools, plus curated reading, research and courses, organized into 13 tracks and mapped to your retooling path — constantly expanding.
- The employer-funding toolkit — manager-approval email, business-case template and learning plan.
- Early access to new training, books and workshops — and we are adding more open-source tool courses.
Every tool shown here is curated and organized inside Mercury Intelligence, alongside reading and research.
Get your employer to fund your learning
Your employer may already maintain a budget for professional development, AI transformation, cybersecurity, data, innovation, risk, compliance or leadership learning. Mercury Intelligence members receive a complete employer-funding toolkit inside the library — a manager approval email, a business-case template and a learning plan.