On a cold January day before an impending snowstorm, a ferocious match was heating up in the Flatiron district of Manhattan. Grace Li and Hector Rodriguez, two students in the M.S. in Technology Management (TMGT) program, were engaged in a ping-pong battle. An interactive ping-pong table tracked their swings in real time, offering performance analytics and AI-generated commentary.
This unique experience was part of a visit to IBM’s Manhattan office, arranged by Alma Kondili, an alumna and associate in the program and a data and AI governance lead at the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund, as part of the TMGT program's in-person residency.
“It was great to see a practical hands-on experience of how the technology can be used,” Rodriguez (’27SPS, TMGT) said. “It seems like something that could be very disruptive in sports—having that sort of real-time analytic advantage.”
Observing AI Solutions at Work
Even more so than seeing his ping pong performance in action, Rodriguez was impressed by a presentation of IBM’s collaboration with NASA. Driven by the urgent need to address climate change, the collaborative project is using AI to analyze satellite data and predict solar outbursts, weather, and climate patterns more quickly and precisely. Rodriguez, who works in AV IT at Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute, expressed hope that similar tools could be used in his own field.
“I have more data than I know what to do with, so it would be great to integrate a system like that—to feed all that data to AI and get insights from it,” he said.
Navigating a New, AI-Powered Job Market
Following the interactive demonstrations of IBM’s tech and services, including a walkthrough of the extensive uses of its WatsonX AI products, current students had an opportunity to connect and engage with IBM employees and learn more about the changing nature of tech work.
In a panel discussion with Kondili as moderator, Barnard grad Jessica Barrios (Americas partner activation lead at IBM) and Columbia College grad Andrea Levy (senior managing consultant at IBM) were joined by Kasimir Koehring, the client engagement leader for the IBM Innovation Studio, to share their experience at the company and tips for students seeking work in the tech space, particularly within IBM and similar enterprise organizations.
One particularly critical theme from the discussion was the shifting expectations for new hires. At a time when AI is dramatically reducing the timelines of projects and businesses are learning that they must adapt to stay afloat, tech employees are expected to arrive with practical skills in tow, a self-starter attitude, and an eye for innovation.
“You’ve got to figure out how to train yourself in a lot of ways,” said Koehring, noting that many tech companies are moving away from ground-level training for new hires and seeking out job candidates with more professional experience.
Barrios shared an anecdote from her own hiring process, in which she was praised by an interviewer for sharing her past failures and how she recovered from them. IBM is “moving at a very fast speed in the market,” she said. “Something that I’ve seen is that they want us to fail fast and move on.”
Koehring seconded that view of failure and rapid recovery as a net positive, and added that another way to set oneself apart as a candidate is to be willing to take on less than ideal opportunities for the sake of building up experience. In his own case, by choosing to take on a job selling “legacy” mainframe software, “I was able to do a lot more than my current role was at the time because of [other] people not wanting to do some of that dirty work,” he said.
Keeping up with the Pace of Change
As the baseline of skill for new employment has risen, current workers are also expected to keep up. IBM, for its part, is committed to training/reskilling 30 million globally by 2030, explained Shiqueen Brown, social impact strategist at IBM, in a presentation of the company’s CSR project SkillsBuild.
“IBM has made a mandate from above to make sure that you have a baseline knowledge in AI—no matter your role—so that you are best suited to your role in 2026,” explained Levy. Within the company, enrolling in internal upskilling or reskilling programs is often a job requirement.
Ultimately, however, more than learning how to code and becoming an expert on every element of the tech you work with, Koehring suggested: “You definitely need to try things so you figure out what to say no to, and so you can discover your strength.” And being in a grad program like Columbia’s TMGT program, he suggested, is the ideal time to try things out and get a return on education. “You're paying for this education, but I think it's the time to fall flat on your face. Because when you're at your job, it's not.”
That message resonated with the group’s other ping pong champion, Grace Li (’27SPS, TMGT). Li—who is based on the West Coast—travels to New York for SPS events whenever she can to make the most of the opportunities available through the program.
Li took Koehring’s advice to heart. “You have to be willing to do the dirty work that other people couldn’t do,” she said. “If you're in college or if you're in grad school, you have to have more experience building AI skills. Become a person who understands AI skills better than other people.”
“It’s going to be a little bit stressful,” Li acknowledged, “But this is the new normal.”
About the Program
The Master of Science in Technology Management at Columbia University prepares graduates to lead digital transformation, and align technology and business strategy with an ethical lens. Through experiential learning, industry partnerships, and Columbia-supported research, students gain fluency in digital platforms and emerging technologies, and learn to design human-centered solutions that drive innovation and sustainable impact.
The program is available for part-time or full-time enrollment online or on campus in NYC. Learn more about the program here.
