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-world challenges.

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 supported by an Industry Advisor and Studio Coach. 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.

How it Works

Every fall, individuals from startups, companies, and organizations in NYC work with students at Cornell Tech. In Product Studio, you and your classmates will develop and present new products, services and strategies to respond to real world challenges.

Those interested in becoming an industry advisor complete the “industry advisor” form to share more about themselves.
The Studio team reviews all industry advisor forms and meets with the advisors if needed for more clarity.
Dreamteam, a matching algorithm created at Cornell Tech, is used to form student teams and connect them to a clearly defined industry, optimizing for students’ interests and cross-disciplinary skills.
The student teams conduct research, pitch innovative ideas based on their discoveries in the industry space, de-risk their ideas, and begin to build validated solutions. The teams meet with their Industry Advisor at least four times during the semester to seek expert feedback and domain expertise.
Teams deliver a final presentation and demo to their industry advisors.

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.

Full Bio

Karan Girotra

Charles H Dyson Family Professor of Management and Professor of Operations, Technology and Information Management

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.

Areas of Research:

Artificial intelligence
Digital transformation
Business model innovation
Innovation management
Supply chain management
Entrepreneurship
Sustainable living

Academic Degrees:

Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2007
A.M., University of Pennsylvania, 2007
B.Tech., Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, 2002

Research Labs and Initiatives:

Abundant Intelligence Lab
Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability
Cornell FinTech Initiative

Website

Google Scholar

Full Bio

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