Graduate School of Applied Technology & Management

The question of who bears responsibility in an economy shaped by artificial intelligence is currently being debated in many forums. It is answered in fewer places. One of them is Launchspace in Zurich-Altstetten, where the Graduate School of Applied Technology & Management operates its training and innovation center. The group has been deliberately kept small. The programme is open to professionals and managers with a college degree and several years of leadership experience; enrollment is limited for each session.

GAT is an independent institution and, at the same time, a venture builder—a dual role that is rare in the education sector. The instructors are not simply speakers, but entrepreneurs, tech leaders, and board members who have to make the same decisions in their own companies. The principle that the school calls “Frontier Learning & Training” means, in practice, that the curriculum is deliberately kept flexible: In a field where tools are updated every few weeks, a fixed curriculum would already be a history lesson. The focus is not on a lecture, but on a simulation in which participants guide a company through their decisions and bear the consequences of those decisions. The pedagogical premise is logical: Knowledge can be tested, but judgment can only be assessed.

In the AI-Powered Career Bootcamp, for example, this culminates after sixteen days in the xMBA exam, which is certified by the SAQ in accordance with ISO 17024.

The institution’s reputation is bolstered above all by its most recent programme. The AI Business Specialist – Leadership Programme, which leads to a Swiss Federal Certificate, is the first programme of its kind in Switzerland. This marks the transition of professional training in artificial intelligence from the unregulated market of certificate courses into the Swiss vocational education and training system: twenty-eight defined competencies, a state-recognised exam, and a 50 percent federal subsidy. The real news is that the federal government has deemed the issue worthy of review.

More than seven hundred graduates have completed the Graduate School since 2023, and many remain connected to the network. That may well be the most remarkable finding. The transformation, which is discussed at length at conferences, is taking place in Altstetten in small groups and with great enthusiasm for the future.