Leadership in the Age of Gen AI

About this course

Additional course information

• Learning objectives

  By the end of this course, students will be able to:

  • Define key terms as they are used in current expert debates, identify the primary stakeholders involved in the framing contest (e.g., AI developers, scientific experts, policymakers, industry champions, public advocates) and recall common metrics and benchmarks used to frame AI systems as "smart."
  • Explain the knowledge of AI systems through the lens of scientific leadership process perspective by exploring how different stakeholders (e.g., tech companies vs. academic researchers) etc. might use the same benchmark results to construct different meanings in different sectors such as healthcare, hospitality and retail.
  • Participants will apply the concepts of the leadership process and identify how stakeholders deploy their strategies to enter new markets, optimize operations and localize strategy in the different sectors (as mentioned above).
  • They will develop their own research proposals based on the process of scientific leadership in their sector of choice by breaking out into groups and then comment on the functions, tasks and draw out the short-term and long-term implications of leadership in Gen AI domain through desk research, industry reports etc.
  • They will learn to assess the effectiveness of different strategies used by experts, critique AI policy framework. They will review on the status of Gen AI by comparing the differences between its growth phase and mature phase.
  • In the final pitch presentation day, they will present the strengths, opportunities and challenges by summarizing how leadership in Gen AI influences the healthcare, hospitality and retail sectors.

• About the course organiser

  Sneha Saha is received her doctorate in the thesis titled "Value co creation in an emerging domain" in 2025 at VU. She has worked across diverse roles with over 9 years of experience in the biotech, global heath, teaching, mentoring & managing EU based collaborative projects and Dept of Biotech, India projects.

  Prof. Dr. K. Boersma is the Professor of Innovations in Crisis Management and Societal Resilience in the Faculty of Social Sciences, part-time seconded to the Faculty of Science. He is the co-founder of the Crisis Resilience Academy of the Institute for Societal Resilience. Since 2019 he is a member of the steering committee of KUNO: Platform for Humanitarian Knowledge Exchange.

• Course syllabus

  Please find the preliminary course syllabus for 2026 here.

• Faculty and department

  Faculty of Science (BETA)