Cornell Tech - Product Studio

Studio Curriculum
Studio Faculty & Practitioners
Real World Access
Culture

What’s the best way to get real-world product development experience? Develop product ideas that respond to the strategic business needs of real companies and organizations.

SEMESTER: FALL

CREDITS: 3.00

TAUGHT BY: Josh Hartmann and Karan Girotra

About This Course

Product Studio is a mandatory course for all master’s students taught only during the fall semester. During the semester, you will work on a team to develop a new tech product or service in response to a challenge posed by a real company. You’ll experience first-hand how the product development process works in the real world and begin to build a network within the New York tech community. Previous challenges have come from organizations as diverse as Bloomberg, the NYC Mayor’s Office, Citigroup, MITRE, Microsoft and Priceline.

How it Works

Every fall, leading startups, companies, and organizations in NYC pose business challenges to Cornell Tech. In Product Studio, you and your classmates will develop and present new products, services and strategies that respond to those challenges.

Challenges are issued. The process begins with a company posing a “How might we . . .” challenge to the class. For example, Weight Watchers challenged us with, “How might we tackle teenage weight loss in a manner that makes teenagers feel good about themselves and not like they are on a program?” Google challenged us with, “How might we encourage people to get a balanced view on controversial topics such as gun control regardless of their (political) leanings?”
Teams are formed. The teams are composed of students from across the Cornell Tech campus—engineers and computer scientists, law students, business students and information systems students—to maximize cross-disciplinary peer learning. A Company Advisor from the company provides support to the student team.
Ideas are developed and presented. Applying all the skills they’ve been learning in the classroom, students conduct user research, create a strategy, and develop and test prototypes of a new product or service that responds to the challenge company’s need. Then the teams educate key stakeholders about their findings and demo their ideas.

Product Studio: Challenges

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*Students should note that Product Studio partner companies are not prospective employers by default and that student interaction with a company through the Product Studio course is not predictive of future employment. For information on the career services that Cornell Tech does offer to students, please visit Career Management.

Josh Hartmann

Chief Practice Officer

Josh Hartmann is the Chief Practice Officer of Cornell Tech. Josh leads efforts to establish the culture and programs of Cornell Tech, including studio-based education, product development and startup activities, student engagement with organizations and practitioners, and more. Josh has spent his career building and leading teams in the New York technology community. Prior to joining Cornell Tech, he was COO of Plusgrade, a technology company serving the airline industry, CTO of Amplify, CTO of Intent Media, and CTO of Travelocity. Josh received an S.B. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994.

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Karan Girotra

Charles H. Dyson Family Professor of Management chair

Karan Girotra, Professor of Operations, Technology and Information Management (OTIM), is the recipient of the Charles H. Dyson Family Professor of Management chair and a Professor at Cornell Tech and in the Johnson School at Cornell University.

Research focus: Business models in the areas of urban living, smart transportation and e-commerce

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After Product Studio

After completing Product Studio, students take either Startup Studio or BigCo Studio in their last spring semester. Students can also add Studio electives to their course-load during their first spring semester and/or subsequent semesters.

See Example Challenges