Students Graduate from the First IE Berkeley Emerging Tech and Innovation Leadership Program

The IE Impact Xcelerator celebrated the graduation ceremony of the first edition of the IE Berkeley Emerging Tech and Innovation Leadership Program (IBTC) in the Segovia campus, following a week of high-level masterclasses and networking.

A total of 11 students from tech and business leadership backgrounds received their diplomas after completing the four-month long executive program, designed to understand emerging technology implications, develop strategic plans, lead business innovation, and connect with tech ventures or suppliers.

Ikhlaq Sidhu, Dean of IE School of Science and Technology handed students their diplomas and applauded the program’s far-reaching C-Suite level network.

“The original intention is to understand the implications of the technologies that are happening right now. The second is actually to build a community that is not at the student level. It’s to build a community so that you can reach back to us, and we can reach to you,” he said. “I’m looking for senior-enough people that we can have real dialogue.”

The celebration came after a three-day concluding agenda, where students met premier speakers covering topics such as the smart construction industry, exponential venturing, cybersecurity, and understanding economically autonomous robots, among others.

In addition to a masterclass offered by industry icon Michael Marks on smart construction, the students enjoyed an interactive session between professor Joe Haslam and Alvaro Martinez Higes, founder of one of Spain’s all-time most successful AI ventures, luzIA. Students also visited Telefonica offices to discuss cybersecurity before finishing the week at the IE Segovia campus with a highly inspirational talk on the use of LLM Dyslexia by professor Luz Rello.

Thomas Mara, a graduate from the IBTC and Managing Director of Vienna Insurance Group said that he benefited from convening with fellow students and engaging with the speakers.

“First it’s really cool to get the universal approach in the industry together in one place, learning from each other, getting the latest stuff, you know, getting to meet very interesting people from the academic side,” Mara said. “Also interconnecting across our industries inside and outside of the classroom.”

Mara said he has already started implementing some of the AI prototypes and proofs of concepts which he developed during the program into his work.

“Even after our first session in Berkeley, we kicked off some prototypes, some PoC’s, proof of concepts in our companies, right across Central Eastern Europe, and some of them are already in place and are running. There are very hands-on-things which we’re going to implement around AI,” he said.

IE Impact Xcelerator’s mission is to break silos and fill the gaps between technology researchers, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders for global advancement and industry evolution.