Curriculum & Courses

Generative AI represents a pivotal technological evolution with profound implications for the global economy and modern society. This course delves into the decades-long development of AI and machine learning, emphasizing its emergence as a critical economic and strategic force. As we explore this technology, we will assess its potential to revolutionize industries, enhance capabilities, and introduce complex challenges related to security, identity, and ethical considerations.

In this dynamic landscape, both incumbent businesses and governmental bodies face the urgent need to adapt to this disruption and the transformative changes it heralds. This course seeks to unpack the catalysts of this technological surge, its foundational principles, and the critical knowledge required for modern leadership in the AI era.

This course explores the principles, strategies, and challenges of technology-driven transformation in organizations. Students will examine emerging technologies, digital disruption, and frameworks for implementing large-scale change. This course provides a comprehensive understanding of digital transformation, focusing on how businesses leverage technology to drive transformation based on various drivers including efficiency, productivity, competitive advantage, and compliance. Students will explore key topics such as product development, systems development lifecycle, enterprise architecture, IT capabilities, and automation. Through case studies, research, and hands-on projects, students will develop the skills needed to lead strategic and technical skills necessary to lead and manage digital transformation initiatives.

The Technology Management Capstone is the culmination of your graduate program and challenges you to bring together what you've learned. The focus of the course is, therefore, highly practical and oriented towards application in the real world. Working in assigned teams, you will propose a product solution that addresses a problem space on a real client project.

With the advent of generative AI and the impending arrival of quantum computing, risks to organizations and individuals have grown exponentially. Innovation in offensive and defensive tools and technologies continues to increase. How does a leader keep up? Leaders must know how to work with internal experts and to manage these issues internally, with Boards, and for the public. Proficiency in strategies and principles, some of which date back to the ancient Greeks and Chinese, prevail over tools.

This course provides a foundational understanding of technology's role in modern organizations, exploring its evolution, strategic implementation, and governance. Students will examine leadership, ethics, financial considerations, and risk management in a technology-driven environment. The course emphasizes the integration of technology with organizational culture, communications, and compliance, preparing students to navigate complex technological landscapes effectively.

In this course, students will comprehend the fundamental principles of these new technologies and how to strategically apply them to drive innovation, create efficiencies, and generate new opportunities in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. It offers students the opportunity to understand the factors fueling the adoption of these technologies including the exponential growth of data, the decline in trust post-financial crisis, the desire for data ownership, growing regulatory transparency requirements, the need for greater efficiencies, and the required protection of sensitive data. The evolution goes beyond the implementation of new processes, decentralized business models and technologies. The convergence of new technologies and interdisciplinary innovation drive the requirement for changes in regulatory processes, governance, and ethics. 

This course is designed for graduate students who aspire to lead in the era of digital transformation. It is ideal for those who seek to understand the strategic applications of blockchain, AI, and Web 3.0 technologies to drive innovation within their organizations. Whether planning to advance in a career in technology management or a professional in data and knowledge-driven industries, this course will enable the acquisition of knowledge and skills necessary to navigate and leverage the opportunities presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

This course provides a comprehensive examination of modern software product development, focusing on creating solutions that address clear user needs and challenges. A “product” in this context refers to a software program that instructs computer hardware to operate, solve problems, and manage tasks effectively.

Modern product development benefits from systematic practices that enhance efficiency, sustainability, and continuity. These practices, including flexibility, iterative development, customer feedback, and efficient project management, are essential for adapting quickly to rapidly evolving market and technology landscapes.

The Independent Study course provides a dynamic platform for our top students, who are as ambitious as the Technology Management program itself. This course offers a special opportunity to engage deeply with a topic of personal or professional interest under the expert guidance of a faculty mentor. Designed to foster self-directed learning, the Independent Study allows students to explore new areas, deepen existing knowledge, or intersect different fields that are not covered in the standard curriculum.

Enrollment in this course is selective and intended for self-motivated students who demonstrate exceptional ability and initiative. Access to the course requires approval from the Program Director’s Office and endorsement from a faculty advisor who will work closely with the student throughout the study.
 

This course equips the next generation of technologists with the skills, strategies, and savvy needed to secure systemic and lasting change for social good. These topics are examined in three units: 1. Intrapreneurship: how to guide responsible technology within and by multinationals and other large-scale, risk-averse institutions; 2. Entrepreneurship & Nonprofits: how to balance market pressures with values-based missions within startups, nonprofits, and other social-good tech enterprises; and 3. Civic Tech: how to navigate policy, politics, and bureaucracies in delivering citizen-facing technologies within local, regional, and national government bodies.

Technology’s complexity becomes intricately detailed and beautiful when viewed as a system —its components, though diverse, work in symbiosis underpinned by shared communication protocols and governance structures. This system enables machines to operate with increasingly minimal human intervention. 

This survey course offers a broad and holistic exploration of technology as an integrated system, emphasizing the seamless integration that characterizes modern technological frameworks. Students will delve into the core components that constitute digital environments—such as the Internet, networks, hardware, and software—and understand how these elements collectively drive and shape today’s IT infrastructure.

Finance for Technology Leaders is designed to empower future tech leaders with essential financial acumen. Rooted in core accounting and finance concepts, this course bridges theory with practice, ensuring students grasp the unique challenges and opportunities for technology leaders. Finance for Technology Leaders is an elective course that builds a foundation for analytic and financial analysis for the Technology Management Program, blending academic rigor with real-world tech applications, and positioning students for impactful career advancements.

Law is infused into every part of business, especially through the lens of technology. Fluency in business and legal frameworks, and risk/benefit principles, from idea to exit, is essential for any innovation leader. This course offers a deep dive into the critical phases of technology companies and their journey through growth, scaling, and eventual market exit. Topics include capital formation, contracts, intellectual property, human capital, and business transactions.

Today, leaders must confront a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. It demands that we strengthen how we lead change. We are all being stretched to learn, unlearn, relearn, and this is especially true for technology leaders – who operate in the ‘eye of the storm’ of relentless change. 

In this context, strategic advocacy -- achieving support for change to address the challenges that confront an organization and the opportunities they provide – requires knowing and applying useful skills, behavior, and practices to win commitment to new, even unanticipated directions.

This is a full-semester core course in the MS in Technology Management executive program designed to expose students to practices, tools, frameworks, concepts, and real-world examples that will help you move from a technical/functional role to a senior executive orientation. Everyone’s journey is unique. As you apply the course content in real life you will be expected to choose, experiment with, and adapt the relevant approaches most meaningful to your situation.

Design-based Innovation is a set of perspectives and processes that organizations of all kinds, in any kind of industry or context, can use to navigate ambiguity to find the best possible opportunities for creating change. It is also a well-developed set of practices to devise and deliver solutions for those potential audiences that result in valuable products, services, and other experiences that customers, consistent, and others respond to with satisfaction, delight, and a sense of value.