Institute for Leadership in Technology

What’s the superpower of the future? Our answer: The humanities

Welcome to the Virginia Tech Institute for Leadership in Technology, where we offer a one-year, low-residency fellowship to a select group of rising leaders from around the world annually. The experience, designed for mid-career professionals from across fields and functions, culminates in an Executive Leadership Certificate from Virginia Tech - a timely credential grounded in the liberal arts - and the celebration of a new network of purposeful professionals committed to the humanities. Welcome to a new kind of leadership literacy for entrepreneurs, executives and evangelists in and around the technology landscape.

Express your interest

Our Fellows: Meet the class of 2025; Learn more

Annual Program: Fellowship overview; Learn more

Who we are

Built by and for technology entrepreneurs and executives, Virginia Tech's Institute for Leadership in Technology was founded in 2023 by social entrepreneur, and former Google and Twitter executive Rishi Jaitly, and is today led by a team of world-class teachers, advisors and leaders. After a successful first year, the institute is now accepting applications for the class of 2025.

Meet the team

Our fellows

They hail from real estate, public policy, social media, business, journalism, and technology.

Meet the class of 2025

Article Item

Humanities-infused leadership program begins second year , article

Follow our story

A Backdrop both Bold and Beautiful

Virginia Tech’s Institute for Leadership in Technology fellowship commences in September of each year with each class of fellows spending two days immersed in the mountains of Blacksburg, Virginia as they embark on their mid-career humanities education and experience. Fellows continue their coursework, with faculty and one another, virtually and via written correspondence. Fellows gather again briefly in January for an illuminating immersion trip before meeting again in April, this time at Virginia Tech’s campus in Northern Virginia, with the U.S. capital as backdrop, for a two-day capstone in which credentials are issued and community is celebrated.

Start the conversation

From Leaders to Stewards

In their coursework, fellows will embrace and engage with a curriculum spanning the arts and classics, religion and philosophy, history and literature - and more - in ways they’ve long sought. And together, with their classmates from a wide range of industries and institutions, they will have cultivated the uniquely-human skills and sensibilities of empathy, introspection, curiosity, clarity, creativity, diplomacy, expression, storytelling, storylistening, inspiration, vision and - indeed - leadership.

See the curriculum

President Tim Sands and Scott Hartley discussion

Ut Prosim (That I May Serve).

We at Virginia Tech are known widely around the world for 150 years of excellence in science and engineering. But we have also spent 150 years teaching and training leaders for whom service is a North Star. Could you see yourself as a Fellow at our Institute? If so, we’d love to get to know you; write us at lit@vt.edu to begin the conversation.

Express your interest

Join our newsletter