VMPL
Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], March 27: As artificial intelligence continues to transform how companies are built and scaled, Scaler School of Technology (SST) has announced the launch of its four-year undergraduate program in AI and Business. The fully residential program is designed to prepare students to operate at the intersection of advanced technology, product thinking, and entrepreneurship, with startup-building embedded as a mandatory component of the curriculum.
Positioned as a first-of-its-kind offering in India, the program integrates a rigorous computer science foundation with hands-on business creation. The final year requires every student to build and attempt to scale an AI-driven startup, supported by institutional mentorship and seed capital. The launch comes at a time when AI tools are significantly lowering the barriers to building software and launching products. What once required large teams and months of development can now be prototyped by individuals in weeks.
Bridging Technology and Business in the AI Era
Undergraduate education has traditionally treated engineering and business as separate disciplines. Engineering programs focus on technical execution, while business education emphasises strategy, finance, and operations. As AI reshapes industries, this separation is becoming increasingly misaligned with how modern companies are built.
Commenting on the launch, Anshuman Singh, the man who led the tech team at Facebook's Messenger and currently the Dean of Scaler School of Technology, said, "AI has fundamentally compressed the time it takes to build. What earlier required large teams and months of development can now be prototyped by a single individual in weeks. That changes who gets to participate in innovation. But access to tools alone is not enough. Builders must understand how these systems work, which problems are worth solving, and how technology translates into sustainable businesses. Education needs to move beyond theory and simulated case studies. It must place students in real situations where they build, ship, face users, and take responsibility for outcomes."
A Build-First, Ownership-Driven Curriculum
The four-year program follows a progressive structure that increases responsibility and real-world exposure each year.
In the first year, students build strong foundations in programming, data structures, mathematics for AI, communication, economics, and structured thinking, applying these concepts through hands-on projects. The second year moves into production-grade systems, AI models, data pipelines, and go-to-market fundamentals.
By the third year, students focus on product strategy, metrics, growth levers, and real-world constraints, often working alongside early-stage startups like Xspecies(Building India's first commercially available humanoid robots for Indian households) within the Scaler Innovation Lab.
The fourth year places students in what the institution calls "Founder Mode". Each student is required to build an AI startup, taking it from idea and MVP to early traction and revenue where possible. Startup-building is not optional and forms a core academic requirement of the program.
Backed by Industry, Capital, and Mentorship
Students in the AI and Business program operate within the Scaler Innovation Lab, engaging with founders, operators, and engineers like Varun Mohan(Creator of Antigravity at Google Deepmind) and Yash Kumar(Creator of ChatGPT 3.5) from companies including Open AI, Google, NVIDIA, Razorpay, and McKinsey. SST has earmarked dedicated pre- seed capital to support student-led ventures and provides access to demo days and investor networks across the startup ecosystem.
For students who choose to pursue industry roles, SST leverages the broader Scaler network of over 1,200 hiring partners across technology and product organisations like Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Students attempting startups retain access to deferred placement support, allowing them to explore entrepreneurship without foregoing traditional career pathways.
Early Signals of Impact
Students from earlier cohorts at SST have already built AI startups generating Rs.30 Lakhs+ in revenue, secured national innovation grants of Rs.25 Lakhs from Samsung, competed in global engineering competitions like GSOC and Summer of Bitcoin, and interned with leading technology firms like Apple. Admissions to the AI and Business program follow a holistic process, combining an entrance assessment with interviews that evaluate curiosity, problem-solving ability, and ownership mindset. Intake is capped at 200 students this year.
Abhimanyu Saxena, Co-founder, Scaler, concluded, "India has a rare opportunity in the AI wave. We have talent, ambition, and a strong startup ecosystem. The real question is whether our institutions evolve fast enough. We are designing this program with ambition and safety, so students can attempt to build meaningful companies without feeling they are risking their careers."
Today's founders and product leaders are expected to understand how AI systems work, identify real-world problems, and design scalable solutions around them. SST's AI and Business program is structured to address this shift by training students to combine technical depth with commercial judgement from the undergraduate level itself.
Applications for the AI and Business undergraduate program are now open on SST's website.
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