COURSE NUMBER:  MBA290T.2, Cross-listed with COE and SI

COURSE TITLE:  The Business of Nanotechnology

UNITS OF CREDIT: 2

INSTRUCTORS:  Andrew Isaacs and Jeffrey Grossman

E-MAIL ADDRESS:  isaacs@haas.berkeley.edu, jgrossman@berkeley.edu

CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION (HTTP URL): mot.berkeley.edu

MEETING DAY(S)/TIME:  Tuesday, 2:00-4:00 PM

PREREQUISITE(S): none

CLASS FORMAT: Lectures, cases and discussion in a seminar format.

REQUIRED READINGS: Reader plus cases, no text

BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE:  Term paper plus class participation, no exams

ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:

The field of nanotechnology, at most ten years old, has emerged as an important new area for investment and business opportunity, and one that is already having an impact in many industries.  Both established companies and young start-ups are developing businesses based on innovations in nanostructures and nano-scale developments in materials science, information technologies and the life sciences.

Offered for the first time in Fall, 2005, this is UC Berkeley's first course focused on nanotechnology-based business opportunities.  The course provides a comprehensive overview of the core elements in this emerging field, specifically the scientific and technical basis of nanotechnology, the emerging business opportunities, and the policy issues that represent both threats and opportunities to nanotechnology investors, innovators, and entrepreneurs.  This course is particularly suited for those who anticipate founding or operating a technology company.

The course focuses on skills needed for the identification of opportunities that can lead to successful entrepreneurial ventures in nanotechnolgy, regardless of the individual's "home" skill set, whether managerial or technical.  We examine in depth the many approaches being taken today to capitalize on opportunities in nanotechnology.  Course material and speakers focus on executing marketing, technology development and strategic plans that integrate technological development with evolving customer requirements.  A central goal of the course is to improve understanding of how the confluence of technological innovation, market forces and venture finance drives new technology ventures.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES:

Andrew M. Isaacs is Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley and Executive Director of UC Berkeleys Management of Technology Program, the joint graduate program of Berkeley's Haas School of Business, College of Engineering and School of Information Management and Systems.

Management of Technology is a graduate and executive level program offering 50 courses in management and high technology plus a wide range of programs that integrate high tech companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere with UC Berkeley.  Since joining MOT in 1999, the program has grown to be the largest interdisciplinary program on the Berkeley campus, with approximately 1,400 graduate student enrollments in the program annually.  Berkeley's Management of Technology Program is one of the largest programs of its type in the world.

Isaacs also directs the joint UC Berkeley UNIDO program on Technology in the Developing World, begun in 2003, including the annual Bridging the Divide Conference held each April on the Berkeley campus.  UNIDO, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, has established a close working relationship with UC Berkeley's MOT Program. Isaacs' graduate courses at Berkeley include:

-Introduction to Management of Technology -Marketing for High Tech Entrepreneurs -Opportunity Recognition:  Technology and Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley -Technology in the Developing World
-The Business of Nanotechnology

He is also a frequent visiting lecturer at universities, corporations and government agencies in the US, Japan, China and Korea.

Isaacs' experience includes a successful and on-going consulting career as well as executive and technology leadership:

-President, California Technology International, Inc., a consulting firm he founded in 1990, ranked among the Top 10 fastest growing companies in Silicon Valley in 1994 and 1995.  CTI's operations in Silicon Valley and Asia specialize in strategy and marketing for US, Japanese, Chinese and Korean technology companies.

-Corporate officer and marketing executive at public and private high tech companies in Silicon Valley, 1983 - 1990.

-Senior Scientist, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, 1981 - 1983

As part of the Management of Technology Program, Isaacs directs several graduate fellowship programs, including the IBM Venture Fellows Program, the Hitachi Fellows Program, the Mayfield Fellows Program, the MOT China Fellows Program, the Sandia Fellows Program and the Berkeley MOT-UNIDO Fellows Program.

His current areas of interest include international marketing, technology company strategy, technology start-ups, technology in the developing world, and US-Asia business strategies.

Isaacs serves on the advisory board for the University of Michigan as well as numerous corporate technical advisory boards.  He is also a government advisor on Nanotechnology policy and IBM Faculty Award Recipient for 2005.  He holds BS and MS degrees from the University of Michigan.

Jeffrey C. Grossman leads the new $12M NSF Nanoscience and Engineering Center, COINS, at the University of California at Berkeley. He is charged with driving forward several large-scale nanotechnology-based sensing applications through highly interdisciplinary research approaches involving 30 faculty members at Berkeley, Stanford, and CalTech.

In addition, Dr. Grossman heads the computational nanoscience group at UC Berkeley, which is actively engaged in a number of research areas relating to the simulation of nanoscale materials and interfaces. His research focuses on the application and development of cutting-edge classical and quantum simulation tools to understand, predict, and design novel nanoscale materials with applications to: developing new sensing approaches, predicting new materials for efficient photovoltaics, examining the microscopic properties of water, understanding the growth mechanisms of carbon nanotubes and silicon nanowires, and designing controllable self-assembly processes of inorganic nanoscale building blocks.

Dr. Grossman received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Illinois, performed postdoctoral work at U.C. Berkeley, and was a Lawrence Fellow at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he helped initiate a large-scale computational nanoscience program. He is a widely published scientist, and has been in the business of simulating nanoscale materials for over 15 years.  Dr. Grossman is a co-founder in a nanotechnology startup.