Maryland Smith Unveils Tech Management MBA and Graduate Certificate Program

Managing emergent technology for organizational success can be a struggle for leaders in today’s public and private sectors. Maryland Smith’s new Tech Management MBA Specialty Elective Track & Graduate Certificate is looking to change that.

Starting in August 2022, the 10-month graduate certificate program –  a collaboration between the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, the A. James Clark School of Engineering, and the School of Public Policy – is tailored to deliver the multi-disciplinary skills modern leaders need to successfully identify and implement technology across their organizations and markets.

Students will also gain a broader strategic understanding of the new economics of innovation and data, how to quantify the lifespan value and risk of investments in new technology,  and explore both the legal and ethical implications of technology development or adoption.

The program is exciting in its potential to help students unlock what they’ve already learned within their professional careers and bring new perspectives on how to execute with it, says Maryland Smith’s Joseph P. Bailey.

“It’s exciting to bring together the three colleges on campus, as well as collaboration with new partners such as the Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC) and their Federal Lab Education Accelerator program, because we want to expose students to thought leadership from different perspectives,” says Bailey, assistant dean for specialty undergraduate programs at Maryland Smith.

This experience will also offer greater insight into the relationship between government and business, especially when it pertains to more transformative and higher risk technologies, Bailey says. The FLC, for example, helps make connections between government research laboratories and businesses with the ability to commercialize federal technologies.

From the start, Maryland Smith’s approach to developing the Technology Management curriculum has been to incorporate but also produce real-world outcomes for its students and partners.  As an example, the Federal Lab Education Accelerator partnership will complement classroom learning as cohort teams work with lab professionals on actual market feasibility studies for the technology under development. A successful project could even lead to an opportunity for the students to license the new technology.

“This program is all about the co-education of leaders creating technology, leaders investing in technology, and leaders using technology across the public and private enterprises postured to define the future of the national capital region and beyond.  We designed it for them, not just as individuals, but as a community of working professionals,” says Frank Goertner, co-director of technology management programs with Bailey.

Applications for the program are currently open and will select students on a rolling basis. Currently enrolled Maryland Smith Flex MBA students may opt to replace their second-year electives with the technology management track courses to graduate with both their MBA and Graduate Certificate in Technology Management.

New students can earn just the certificate and choose to apply those 14 credits toward the Maryland Smith Flex MBA program at a later time.

“Technology development is about connections, and its management is about values. The same can be said of business. One could say it is increasingly difficult to see where either ends and the other begins,” says Goertner. “The future of business is tech, and the future of tech is business. Maryland Smith is preparing leaders for both ends of that equation.”