Explore professional learning supported by university programs and experienced industry practitioners, with a growing focus on AI, digital transformation, business innovation, emerging technologies, and sector-specific applications.
Organizations need practical, responsible, and industry-specific AI learning opportunities that connect strategy, workforce development, implementation, and long-term innovation.
Programs may combine executive education, technical workshops, industry case studies, expert engagement, applied projects, responsible AI guidance, and customized organizational training.
Beyond Academic combines university-supported offerings with selected industry-focused learning areas for executives, professionals, educators, technical teams, public leaders, and institutional decision-makers.
AI programs may be customized for universities, hospitals, companies, government agencies, professional associations, and international delegations.
Identify operational, workforce, service, and strategic challenges that AI may address.
Evaluate high-value AI use cases, data readiness, risks, and organizational priorities.
Build AI literacy, leadership capability, governance awareness, and implementation knowledge.
Apply AI concepts through industry cases, workshops, demonstrations, and customized projects.
Translate AI learning into productivity, service improvement, innovation, and workforce development.
Selected programs may include executive briefings, industry cases, expert workshops, technology demonstrations, site visits, and applied AI projects.
Programs may be delivered online, in person, in hybrid formats, or as customized cohort-based executive and professional training.
UCSC Silicon Valley Extension offerings are integrated where they directly support our program areas. Existing Beyond Academic industry modules are retained where they provide distinct, non-duplicative coverage.
Course Overview: A hands-on business-focused course on the managerial implications of AI, enterprise use cases, AI project lifecycles, data, governance, business models, responsible adoption, and building an AI transformation roadmap.
Key Topics: AI strategy; enterprise use cases; AI project lifecycle; data and infrastructure; governance and compliance; AI-first business strategy; future of work.
Instructor: Durgam Vahia, MS, MBA
Instructor Profile: Product Management Leader at Google with more than 20 years of experience in engineering, product management, and entrepreneurship. His background includes DoorDash, LinkedIn, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and founding an enterprise SaaS company. He holds an MBA from UC Berkeley Haas and an MS in Computer Engineering from UMass Amherst.
Course Overview: An introduction to generative AI and its applications across industries, including text, image and sound generation, deep learning foundations, transformer models, prompt engineering, model training and fine-tuning, open-source LLMs, ethics, and emerging trends.
Key Topics: Generative AI applications; transformers and LLMs; prompt engineering; model training and fine-tuning; open-source models; responsible AI.
Instructor: Instructor varies by scheduled section
Instructor Profile: UCSC posts the instructor with each scheduled section. The current course page should be checked for the latest faculty assignment.
Course Overview: A practical course for nontechnical professionals using AI tools such as Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, NotebookLM, ChatGPT, and DALL-E to improve documents, spreadsheets, presentations, calendars, email, content creation, summarization, and workflow automation.
Key Topics: AI productivity tools; prompt engineering; document and spreadsheet workflows; presentations; email and calendars; workflow automation.
Instructor: Bineet Sharma, MSCS
Instructor Profile: Director/Associate Professor at the University of Silicon Valley and UCSC Silicon Valley Extension program chair/instructor. He has more than 30 years of experience in technical architecture, management, professional teaching, software development, and entrepreneurship.
Course Overview: An enterprise-focused course on retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and AI agents, with emphasis on reliable knowledge retrieval, business problem solving, productivity, decision support, and scalable enterprise applications.
Key Topics: RAG architecture; enterprise knowledge retrieval; AI agents; business workflows; trustworthy AI outputs; enterprise-scale applications.
Instructor: Mike Tzamaloukas, PhD, MBA
Instructor Profile: General Manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS) Automotive. He has more than 12 years of experience launching high-volume consumer and enterprise products across telecommunications, transportation, government, and services, and is also a serial entrepreneur.
Course Overview: A practical enterprise course focused on applying AI to analyze information, generate and transform content, build intelligent agents, automate business processes, and design an end-to-end AI automation solution.
Key Topics: Enterprise AI agents; data analysis; content generation; automated processes; agent decision-making; AI automation capstone.
Instructor: Sanjay Agarwal
Instructor Profile: Chief Operating Officer at Security 2.0, an AI cybersecurity startup. He has more than 30 years of industry experience and has developed and deployed machine learning and AI solutions at organizations including PG&E, Amazon, and Microsoft.
Course Overview: An advanced course extending enterprise AI-agent skills into agentic process automation and AI integration, with a focus on connecting intelligent agents to practical organizational workflows and systems.
Key Topics: Agentic process automation; AI integration; intelligent workflows; enterprise automation; applied AI implementation.
Instructor: Sanjay Agarwal
Instructor Profile: Chief Operating Officer at Security 2.0 with extensive AI, machine learning, semiconductor, business, and government project experience, including work associated with PG&E, Amazon, and Microsoft.
Course Overview: Professional learning for instructors and educators focused on practical uses of AI in teaching and learning, including generative AI tools, personalized learning, assessment, feedback, student engagement, and classroom implementation.
Key Topics: AI tools for teaching; generative AI in education; personalized learning; assessment and feedback; student engagement; classroom implementation.
Instructor: Bineet Sharma (recent UCSC workshop offering)
Instructor Profile: UCSC Silicon Valley Extension program chair/instructor and seasoned technologist with more than 30 years of experience in technology, management, teaching, and entrepreneurship. Instructor assignments may vary by workshop offering.
Course Overview: Professional learning for faculty and instructional teams using AI to support course planning, curriculum development, content creation, learning activities, assessment design, and instructional improvement.
Key Topics: AI-assisted course development; curriculum planning; content creation; learning activities; assessment design; instructional improvement.
Instructor: Bineet Sharma (recent UCSC workshop offering)
Instructor Profile: UCSC Silicon Valley Extension program chair/instructor and seasoned technologist with more than 30 years of experience in technology, management, teaching, and entrepreneurship. Instructor assignments may vary by workshop offering.
Course Overview: Professional AI engineering coursework covering the development and application of machine learning, deep learning, intelligent systems, and production-oriented AI technologies.
Key Topics: Machine learning; deep learning; AI application development; intelligent systems; applied AI engineering.
Instructor: Multiple UCSC Silicon Valley instructors
Instructor Profile: Instructor assignments depend on the selected AI Engineering course and term.
Course Overview: Advanced professional coursework in very-large-scale integration and semiconductor design for engineers working with modern chip architecture, design, verification, and implementation.
Key Topics: VLSI design; integrated circuits; chip architecture; semiconductor design and implementation.
Instructor: Multiple UCSC Silicon Valley instructors
Instructor Profile: Instructor assignments depend on the selected VLSI course and term.
Course Overview: Professional embedded-systems coursework connecting hardware, software, connected devices, real-time systems, and intelligent edge applications.
Key Topics: Embedded software; hardware/software integration; real-time systems; connected devices; intelligent edge systems.
Instructor: Multiple UCSC Silicon Valley instructors
Instructor Profile: Instructor assignments depend on the selected Embedded Systems course and term.
Course Overview: Silicon Valley professional education related to semiconductor design, manufacturing, integrated circuits, and emerging chip technologies.
Key Topics: Semiconductor design; manufacturing; integrated circuits; AI-enabled semiconductor workflows; emerging chip technologies.
Instructor: Multiple UCSC Silicon Valley instructors
Instructor Profile: Instructor assignments depend on the selected semiconductor/VLSI course and term.
Course Overview: A collection of UCSC courses for professionals who want to understand and apply AI in business strategy, productivity, enterprise transformation, and automation.
Key Topics: AI strategy; generative AI; productivity; enterprise AI; digital transformation; intelligent automation.
Instructor: Multiple UCSC Silicon Valley instructors
Instructor Profile: Faculty in this area include experienced Silicon Valley technology and business professionals.
Course Overview: A hands-on, project-based entrepreneurship experience using Lean Startup methodology, Business Model Canvas, customer discovery, market research, product development, design thinking, leadership, teamwork, and pitching.
Key Topics: Lean Startup; Business Model Canvas; market research; customer discovery; product-market fit; product development; leadership and pitching.
Instructor: Yuliya Monastyrska (2026 offering)
Instructor Profile: UCSC lists Yuliya Monastyrska as instructor for the 2026 Startup Entrepreneurship Academy offering. Instructor assignments may vary by term.
Course Overview: A Silicon Valley-focused business innovation experience centered on adapting business models, executive dialogue, strategic exchange, and exposure to the regional innovation ecosystem.
Key Topics: Business-model innovation; Silicon Valley ecosystem; executive dialogue; strategic exchange; innovation leadership.
Instructor: Program faculty and industry experts vary by cohort
Instructor Profile: Faculty, executives, and industry participants are selected according to the scheduled or customized program.
Build relevant AI knowledge connected to real organizational and industry needs.
Strengthen strategic decision-making, governance, and responsible AI leadership.
Use cases, demonstrations, workshops, and applied projects to connect learning with practice.
Choose short-term, online, hybrid, in-person, or customized organizational formats.
Engage with academic experts, industry professionals, technology leaders, and institutional partners.
Prepare leaders and teams to work effectively in AI-enabled industries and organizations.
Tell us your industry, target participants, preferred schedule, AI priorities, and organizational objectives.
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