Top Business School Launches Tech-Focused Institute
Credit: Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune / Tribune News Service / Getty Images- Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management is leading the new Northwestern Innovation Institute.
- It will use big data to analyze everything from grants to patents and inventions.
- It’s the latest cross-disciplinary effort by Kellogg in a changing business education landscape.
- Interdisciplinary tech institutes are becoming the norm as business schools embrace science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
Innovation is the name of the game in modern business education.
Business schools made big data and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) an essential part of their curriculum over the past year. In fact, analytics and tech are now almost ubiquitous across business education and master of business administration (MBA) degrees.
Now, one of the nation’s top business schools is taking a deeper look at how innovation occurs in education and beyond.
A new institute led by Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management will use tools like AI to look at “how innovation occurs across science, technology, and business,” according to a press release.
The Northwestern Innovation Institute will use big data to analyze everything from grants to patents and inventions to get a better understanding of what drives innovation at an organization — and to develop predictive models to help leaders drive change.
The institute was funded through a $25 million gift from Northwestern Trustee Pin Ni and the Future Wanxiang Foundation. Ni is also the president and founder of Wanxiang America Corp.
“Investing in innovation is the key to unlocking new possibilities,” Ni said in the release
“The Northwestern Innovation Institute will be more than just advancing technology; it will lead to meaningful change that impacts lives and communities. I am proud to support this next step in innovation at Northwestern and Kellogg.”
Kellogg Dean Francesca Cornelli said in the release that the new institute “is the next frontier in advancing research that has real world impact.”
The institute will initially focus on universities. The press release notes that, while research universities are drivers of innovation, it’s been hard to predict which university research will have potent real world uses.
“If we can make [research and development] even 5 percent more efficient, the returns for society would be immense — in longer, healthier and happier lives for everyone around the world,” Dashun Wang, Kellogg chair of technology and professor of management and organizations at Kellogg, said in the release.
Specialized Tech Institutes Come to Business Education
Here’s a reality: Tech is now an essential part of business education.
Top business schools, like the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, have announced major investments in AI and other technologies in response to employer and student demand over the past few years.
Students largely expect AI and tech to be part of their curriculum, and Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) research has found that the human skills long prized as part of business education will continue to be important even as the need for AI skills continues to grow.
Students have also expressed interest in more tech-focused business master’s degrees and MBA concentrations in a bid to showcase unique skills.
That means business education is getting more interdisciplinary. Kellogg is no stranger to that trend. The school last year launched a host of specialized institutes as part of cross-university collaborations.
That includes the Northwestern Medicine Kellogg Healthcare Leadership Center, a collaboration with Northwestern Medicine that was established with a $10 million endowment last year.
University leaders said the center will “become the preeminent place to educate a cadre of leaders in healthcare through leadership training, experiential teaching, research and innovation,” according to a press release announcing the effort last year.
The school also launched other, even more specialized centers and institutes.
In February 2024, the school announced a new Center for Enlightened Disagreement that will focus on diverse perspectives and bridging divides. In 2023, the school launched an interdisciplinary institute to study the growing field of complexity science.
Kellogg’s Year of Momentum
Kellogg has generally been a step ahead of most other business schools when it comes to investing in emerging technologies.
The school has for years offered an MBAi program, integrating artificial intelligence curriculum into an MBA program. That movement has become widespread at business schools over the past year, with more top institutions announcing major investments in the technology.
Kellogg leading the Northwestern Innovation Institute is only the latest step the school has taken to ramping up its already global reputation.
Kellogg is in the middle of a $600 million fundraising effort, the Full Circle Campaign, that features a heavy focus on current market trends.
“The Full Circle Campaign brings together the benefits of faculty interacting with experienced executives and staying on the cutting edge of what’s happening in the real world, whether it’s AI, cybersecurity, or other issues,” University Trustee Bon French said in a press release announcing the campaign.
“Those faculty then bring those insights to their research and students. This feedback loop keeps our faculty at the forefront of what’s latest in the real world.”
That will also include a new building with a focus on global and hybrid education.