M.S. in Technology Commercialization - Information Session August 12, 2009

The Master of Science in Technology Commercialization (MSTC) degree is a 16-month program that prepares individuals for successful entrepreneurship and for fields such as technology assessment, IP development, technology transfer, product licensing, product line development and management, business development, and strategic planning. The curriculum is about action-based learning. Rather than working on business case studies and hypothetical exercises, students work on real technologies and learn how to assess and calculate the viability of the product, identify the correct market and finally launch the product for profit. The MSTC Program is focused on technology commercialization and acquiring the skill set necessary to take a product from lab to market. The program teaches students how to ‘bridge the gap’ between intellectual property (technology) and the needs of consumers. Graduates earn their Master of Science in Technology Commercialization from The University of Texas at Austin.

The MSTC Program is designed so that students earn a graduate degree in just 16 months while continuing to work full-time. Classes meet alternate weekends, on Friday afternoons and Saturdays. The program begins in May and concludes in August the following year. It consists of 36 graduate credits packed into an intensive sequence of 12 three-credit courses. The deadline for complete application submission is February 1, 2010.

Students can attend classes in Austin, via video webcast or video archive - or do a combination of all three. Students have the option of fully completing the program without ever coming to Austin, because there is no residency requirement for the MSTC Program. All classes are webcast live over the Internet, so students participate and ask questions from anywhere in the world that they can access a broadband connection. Class videos are archived online after the live session, so students can watch the lectures at a later time if they are unable to make the live class or if they desire additional review.

Most assignments are done on teams of 4-6 students, and these teams develop and commercialize several new technologies over the course of the year. The program culminates in formal presentations of the student-teams' final technology commercialization plans before a panel of faculty, industry leaders and venture capitalists. A number of the technologies developed in the program have resulted in subsequent commercial ventures for MSTC graduates.

You can read further about the program and register for this information session on the website. www.ic2.utexas.edu/mstc