Biography
Juan Carlos Barahona is a technologist with more than three decades of experience accompanying public and private organizations in their digital transformation processes. His experience has been developed in different roles that range from the development and sale of an ERP as part of a successful venture in the 80s, to his most recent roles designing hybrid support processes for digital transformation teams and executive committees. .
Dr. Barahona is associate professor of technology and innovation management at INCAE Business School and academic director of the specialized master's degrees in marketing and digital transformation.
He obtained the degree of Ph.D. in Media, Arts and Sciences at the prestigious Media Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the MBA degree with an emphasis in Banking and Finance at INCAE Business School. His doctoral thesis on the adoption of innovations, entitled "Diffusion of ideas, practices and artifacts: Network effects on collective results", was guided by Alex (Sandy) Pentland, one of the most cited computer scientists and recently declared by Forbes the XNUMXth most powerful data scientist in the world.
Through INCAE and from Sociometrika, his consulting firm, he has advised companies and governments in more than twelve countries, has served as a consultant for different organizations and has developed training activities in more than 20 nations. In his country, he has been a pioneer in digital government and continues to promote and support the provision of public services by digital means and the adoption of the Electronic Public Procurement System. He participates in boards of directors as a director or as an external member in technology and digital transformation committees.
It has more than 200 managerial and academic publications, most of which revolve around transformation and innovation processes in which it has participated directly.
Profile
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Degrees
- Ph.D. - Media, Arts and Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- MAE - Business Administration, INCAE
- Baccalaureate - Business Administrator with an Emphasis in Computer Science, International University of the Americas
Teaching areas
- Technology and Innovation
Courses
- Information Technology and Systems Management
- Management Information Systems
- Innovation and Technology Management
- Social Media
- Introduction to Consulting
- Management Consulting Practice
- Innovation
- ANEC (Critical Thinking and Decision Making)
Executive Programs
Publications
Work experience
Juan Carlos Barahona is an associate professor at INCAE Business School. His general academic interest is in the role of digital technologies and social structures in the diffusion of ideas, behaviors and artifacts.
He was a member of the Human Dynamics Group of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The scientific research group led by Prof. Alex (Sandy) Pentland, one of the most cited computer scientists and considered by Newsweek magazine as one of the 100 most influential people on the planet.
Before joining MIT, he was Deputy Director of the Latin American Center for Competitiveness and Sustainable Development of INCAE, and a consultant for the World Bank for the development of the strategy and preparation of the business plan for the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, and on issues related to education.
At the end of the XNUMXs, he led the research team that developed the conceptual model and facilitated the reform process of the five Central American customs, as part of a joint action-research initiative on trade logistics of the Harvard Center for International Development Development. , from the Center for Strategy and Competition of the Harvard Business School and INCAE.
Prof. Barahona has served as a consultant for companies and governments in several Latin American countries in the fields of strategy and organization. He is a co-author of the educational policy of Costa Rica and one of the pioneers in digital government in that country. He is the author of business case studies, articles, books, and book chapters on sustainable development, customs reform, trade logistics, information technology for development, and social media analysis. Before pursuing an academic career, he was the founding entrepreneur of a software company and a business consulting firm.
At present, he complements his academic work with advising companies as a consultant or as a member of its board of directors.