14 Courses on 5 Continents Highlight Spring Global Learning Opportunities at UVA Darden

Global course offerings at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business are known as Darden Worldwide courses, and they will live up to their name this spring as students learn on five continents via 14 global learning opportunities in March and May.

Darden has expanded and diversified it’s global course offerings in recent years, and two of the spring courses are being offered for the first time — “Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Technological Unemployment” led by Professor Tim Laseter in Germany and the “NOLS Experiential Leadership Elective” in Patagonia, led by the NOLS wilderness education school with Professor Bobby Parmar.

The special leadership elective in Chilean Patagonia offers students the opportunity to develop personal leadership skills in a new and uncertain environment.

“Through an eight-day expedition, students will learn the basics of living and traveling in rugged backcountry and a common framework for leadership,” Parmar said. “Once initial training is complete, the NOLS instructors will transition leadership of the expedition to students, which will present many new challenges that offer real-life leadership lessons we can’t simulate in the classroom.”

The five-day course in Germany will challenge students to think about a future business world enabled by robotics and artificial intelligence, enhanced by visits to organizations such as a Porsche manufacturing facility that are operating at the forefront of technology development and application.

“Germany is a global leader applying technology in order to withstand an onslaught of low-cost country competition,” Laseter said. “Through firsthand observation in the field, students will gain key insights to the technical, business and societal implications of AI and robotics as we contemplate the role of capitalism in a world facing concerns over significant technological unemployment.”

In the 2016–17 academic school year, the number of days Darden students spent abroad on global learning experiences more than doubled from the previous year. This year, the School is again on pace to increase the number of students participating in global courses and days spent learning abroad.

The full spring schedule of Darden Worldwide courses includes:

• “Strategy as Design in Barcelona,” Spain, 11–16 March
• “Kaizen Projects in Manufacturing, Sales, Marketing and R&D,” China, 12–16 March
• “Kaizen Projects in Manufacturing, Sales, Marketing and R&D,” Finland, 12–16 March
• “Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Technological Unemployment,” Germany, 13–18 March
• “Innovation and Technology,” Israel, 19–28 March
• “Lessons from South Africa on Public-Private Sector Cooperation to Grow an Economy,” South Africa, 19–30 March
• “NOLS Experiential Leadership Elective,” Chile, 22–30 March
• “Global Capital Markets,” United Kingdom, 26–30 March
• “Doing Business in Unstable Economic Environments: Argentina’s Wine Industry Exploration,” Argentina, 9–17 May
• “Exploring How China Influences the Conduct of Business Within China and Internationally,” China, 10–16 May
• “Where Tradition Meets Innovation,” Japan, 10–18 May
• “Health Care, Education and Entrepreneurship: A Foundation for Rapid Economic Growth in Uganda,” Uganda, 11–22 May
• “Leadership Lessons from the Normandy Invasion,” France, 12–18 May
• “Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Sustainability,” Sweden, 13–19 May