Philosophy & Vision

ITU Global Vision
International Technological University is a materialization of the educational ideals of the 21st century. ITU embraces the belief that technological advances in communication, transportation, and trade have made cross-cultural interaction and cooperation inevitable and desirable. The University plays a special international role by attracting international talent (students, professors, industry innovators and entrepreneurs), identifying their particular cultural strengths and needs, and matching those elements together into optimally functional teams to push forward technological advancement on a global basis.

Silicon Valley Leader
Silicon Valley has changed the face of the world with technological innovation married with startup funding. We are the world’s capital for microelectronics, software development, internet & computing industries, biotechnology as well as the financing of these entrepreneurial ventures. Now, with the exploding growth of the $20 billion world-wide game development industry and the establishment of Lucas Films in San Francisco, Hollywood-styled media entertainment and game creation are powerful forces injected into Silicon Valley’s landscape. ITU’s founders, executive team and faculty are the pioneers and top innovators in all of these fields. These technology, business, media and venture capital leaders have gathered together with a shared vision for globalization and created ITU, a model of educational excellence that defines the hi-tech, media and business future for the Silicon Valley and the rest of the world.

Innovative Education
ITU recognizes that the engineering profession has outgrown the existing model of academic education. The present academic model is based on the classical science curriculum. This model sets a solid foundation of theoretical knowledge, but it is slow to innovate and lacking in practical application. Classical academic curriculum requires only a limited exposure to laboratory work. However, like biotech research, medicine and law, engineering is a profession requiring a significant level of hands-on experience for competence. In the industry, engineers are very often confronted with problems characterized by a lack of complete information, as opposed to the neatly defined textbook problems taught in schools.

Application Oriented Training
There is a “relevance gap” between the theory taught in present day engineering education and the practical realities of industry. As a result, the tremendous resources typically found in educational institutions—intellectual excellence, a virtual “think-tank” research environment, an abundance of low-cost and highly innovative talent, a captive “test-bed” population of students— is wasted. Thus, a new model for engineering and business education is required, where a marriage between theory and practice is achieved. ITU has introduced this model based on a flexible, cross-disciplinary curriculum designed to meet the needs of top-caliber engineering, business and digital arts students interested in the hi-tech entrepreneurial environment.

Consilience: The Convergence of Disciplines
The Silicon Valley has observed the merger of expertise across engineering fields and seemingly unrelated industries. No hardware chip is created today without absolute dependence on CAD software programs. The best hardware development companies are thus housed with electrical engineers who possess a deep understanding of the nature of software design. Similarly, biotech and pharmaceutical companies now invent drugs and new molecules using computer-based bioinformatics programs that efficiently replace the test-tube process of laboratory experimentation. Life science students interested in a career in biology are therefore best served with at least a minimal dose of software engineering theory and application. The film entertainment field, well-known for flashy special effects, has pushed the envelope of computer simulation technology, crossing over to pioneer real-time, non-intrusive 3D heart modeling for cardiac hospital patients. Heart attacks are now prevented and lives saved by discoveries made by Hollywood special effects engineers and artists. These dramatic developments reflect the consilience of knowledge across disciplines in the new world in which we now live.

Cross Disciplinary Curriculum
ITU’s founders pioneer these changes, both in academic research and in the hi-tech startup creation of the Silicon Valley. ITU’s curriculum therefore actively promotes cross-disciplinary study for all students. Business students are encouraged to take computer engineering courses (like IT Security), furnishing the knowledge base every corporate business must have to “secure” their bottom line. Electrical Engineering students are encouraged to take performance art courses (like acting) to raise their communication skills. These “soft skills” are absolutely essential to their future success in breaking into management positions from their technical engineering roots. In Silicon Valley, the failure of most startup hi-tech companies is due to a lack of effective marketing expertise, despite advanced proprietary technology. At ITU, our hi-tech entrepreneurial MBA program offers a focus in multimedia marketing, which includes optional production classes in animation, digital film and e-commerce production. By combining the best of modern application technology and the newest thinking in consilience science, the structure of ITU’s curriculum facilitates cross-fertilization among engineering, business marketing, media production and individual performance excellence.

Silicon Valley Based China Focus
The Silicon Valley sits on the Pacific Rim and has long served as America’s window to China and other Asian countries. Many of the founding members of ITU are hi-tech entrepreneurs with Chinese origins who continue to influence and do business in Asia. ITU thus has a natural connection and strong desire to bring the most advanced technology and the American educational model to benefit China’s emerging culture and economy. Within the next few years, ITU will expand its program offerings in China and contribute to the quickly changing educational infrastructure there, reflecting the best of both the Chinese and American traditions. With this open invitation, we invite you to join ITU in this noble and exciting mission.

ITU Nondiscrimination Policy
ITU is a non-profit organization incorporated in the State of California under International Technological University Foundation. It is treated as a publicly supported organization and is governed by its Board of Trustees. ITU does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and/or ethnic origin, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, handicap/disability, religion, veteran’s status, or age in the administration of any of its educational policies, admission policies and programs, as well as employment-related policies and activities.