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Purdue University’s Kluk Institute for Technological Diplomacy has launched a new online initiative to educate government and business leaders, as well as the general public, about issues at the intersection of technology, national security and economic prosperity.
Founded in 2021 and affiliated with Purdue University, the Kluk Institute aims to educate policymakers, diplomats and other stakeholders on key technologies and topics such as hypersonics, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
To that end, last month the institute launched the Tech Diplomacy Academy, an online education platform that offers subscribers a series of hour-long courses taught by Purdue professors. The courses are asynchronous, meaning they don’t include live sessions, and students can watch the lessons on their own schedule.
The initial course lineup features 17 classes, with four more coming soon. Users must register to access the classes, but the Academy is offering one class, “Introduction to Technology Diplomacy,” as a free trial.
According to Michelle Judah, director of the Crack Institute, the course offerings will continually evolve to stay current. “We will continually build and update our course catalog based on developments in technology as well as foreign policy and geopolitics,” she said.
Several of the Kluk Institute’s key leaders, including Judah, Purdue University President Moon Chang and Kluk Institute namesake and board chairman Keith Kluk, formerly worked for the U.S. State Department.
Judah said the Crack Institute was established to help State Department officials better understand critical technologies and their impact on national security and foreign policy.
“If you’re a diplomat, you have to have this foundational knowledge,” Judah said. “You don’t need to have a PhD, but you have to have some basic understanding of these technologies and the terminology that surrounds them in order to develop good national security strategies and conduct diplomacy around them.”
Judah said the State Department has already signed up as the first user of the Tech Diplomacy Academy.
But the course is also relevant to business leaders, she says: “What the Technology Diplomacy Academy aims to do is to support them and their employees, to inform them about the geopolitical trends around technology and the role their business plays, so they can understand what the opportunities and challenges are for their business.”
Tech Diplomacy Academy subscriptions cost $150 per person per month or $1,500 per person per year, with discounts available for groups of 10 or more. Learn more here.
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