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This Program is Perfect For

  • Executives responsible for global expansion who want facilitated introductions, moderated dialogue, and curated access to Silicon Valley companies in a neutral, trust-building academic setting.
  • Leaders building platform or partnership-driven strategies who are ready to move from competitive positioning to ecosystem orchestration and co-creation.
  • Government and economic development officers tasked with fostering international collaboration, innovation exchange, and resilient, sustainable market growth frameworks.

Adapting business models to the changing landscape

Leverage open innovation, ecosystem formation and strategic partnerships

Experience a Silicon Valley¨Canchored platform where visiting global firms present their value propositions to invited Silicon Valley executives. Participants gain insights to shape stronger, more actionable partnerships and accelerate ecosystem formation for market entry and growth. This course is an immersive executive program designed to give leaders practical tools, ecosystem strategies, and hands-on experience with building scalable and sustainable business models.

A comprehensive growth strategy curriculum

The program convenes senior executives from global firms and selected Silicon Valley companies in a structured forum at the Silicon Valley Campus of University of California, Santa Cruz. As a neutral innovation bridge, the university fosters trust, rigor, and balanced dialogue with select corporate visits designed to reinforce ¡ª not dominate ¡ª the learning experience.

  • Curated company visits
  • Executive dialogue
  • Strategic exchange with key industry leaders

Our vision of the Adaptable Business Models program

We create a structured, university-hosted environment where visiting senior executives, Silicon Valley firms, innovation leaders, technology partners, and academic stakeholders engage in moderated dialogue to explore market expansion opportunities, strategic partnerships, platform-based collaboration, and scalable, sustainable business models to design win-win, resilient, cross-border partnerships.

What makes this program distinct is its role as a curated partnership laboratory, featuring university-hosted executive dialogue within a neutral conference setting that enables structured engagement. The program is meant to be customizable for the needs of the incoming global group.

Core objectives

  • Develop ecosystem-centered business models.
  • Engage in structured dialogue with Silicon Valley firms within a university setting.
  • Identify partnership pathways aligned with digital and AI-driven market shifts.
  • Participate in facilitated deal-making and partnership formation discussions.
  • Design scalable market expansion strategies.
  • Build resilient, sustainable platform architecture.
  • Produce actionable partnership and implementation plans.

Strategic outcomes

  • Structured partnership discussions initiated
  • Clear market expansion pathways
  • A co-developed scalable platform strategy
  • Institutional relationships within Silicon Valley
  • A resilient ecosystem framework

Program structure

The course, Adapting Business Models (BMCT.801) offers five days of interactive discussion, Silicon Valley meetings, and a capstone presentation.

Participants will receive a Professional Certificate of Completion upon finishing the course.

  • Arial View: The big picture of the changing landscape
  • Open innovation frameworks and mindset
  • Open business models: Co-creation and knowledge flows
  • Business models and partnership framework
  • Leadership for the changing landscape
  • From competition to ecosystem orchestration
  • Case studies of global platform success and failure

Outcomes

1. Strategic reframing from firm-centric to ecosystem-centric growth. 

2. Partnership readiness framework.

Conference Room Setting 
at the Silicon Valley Campus of °®¶¹´«Ã½ Silicon Valley Extension 

Structured roundtables

  • Visiting international executives
  • Selected Silicon Valley firms
  • Innovation advisors (Retired Senior Executives)

Format

  • Presentation of Value Propositions by Visiting Firms to Interested Silicon Valley Executives
  • Moderated strategic dialogue & Silicon Valley response panels
  • Partnership exploration sessions via Breakout working groups
  •  

This neutral university setting enables:

  • Candid discussion,
  • Strategic alignment with input, and
  • Trust building. 

After identifying areas of collaboration and initial partnership scoping, participants will deliver final presentations before a review panel.

Each visiting executive team will produce:

  • A validated, scalable business model
  • A Silicon Valley engagement summary
  • A partnership formation strategy
  • An implementation roadmap
  • A resilience and sustainability framework

 

Our curriculum partner

Solomon Darwin, Instructor, °®¶¹´«Ã½ Silicon Valley


Executive Director, Open Innovation
Lecturer, °®¶¹´«Ã½ Silicon Valley Extension

Professor Solomon Darwin, formerly a University of California, Berkeley educator and global scholar, has focused his work on open innovation, leadership, and societal change across cultures and economies. He spent more than two decades at UC Berkeley, primarily in senior leadership roles at the Haas School of Business where several global initiatives were conceived and launched.

An internationally recognized expert in Open Innovation, he has lectured in over 30 countries and is widely hailed as the father of the Smart Village movement¡ªan approach to community-centered innovation that was birthed at Berkeley and later implemented internationally. Drawing on experience across academia, industry, and public service, his teaching emphasizes historical perspective, real-world case studies, and discussion-based exploration of global trends, ethical questions, and the long-term consequences of leadership and innovation.

Previously, he was an associate professor at the Marshall School of Business at University of Southern California and worked in senior corporate officer roles at Bank of America, First Interstate, Glendale Federal Bank, and Motorola.

please contact our curriculum partner to learn more about this program. 

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