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He is an Associate Professor of Technology and Innovation Management at INCAE Business School, has directed the Executive Masters in Marketing and Digital Transformation, and currently directs the Specialization in Artificial Intelligence for Digital Business.
He is the author of more than 200 managerial and academic works related to the adoption of technological innovations and business intelligence. He is also a pioneer in the incorporation and adoption of Generative Artificial Intelligence tools in the teaching of the case method and critical thinking.
Dr. Barahona has extensive experience advising and training business and government leaders in more than 20 countries. Through the corporate programs of INCAE and the firm Sociométrika, he has contributed with local and global companies in the identification and solution of complex problems, based on a design approach, data analysis and "People Analytics".
He earned an MBA with an emphasis in Banking and Finance from INCAE and a Ph.D. Media, Arts, and Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab. His thesis "Diffusion of ideas, practices, and artifacts: network effects on collective outcomes" was guided by Alex (Sandy) Pentland, declared by FORBES as one of the "7 most powerful data scientists in the world".
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Juan Carlos Barahona is an associate professor at INCAE Business School. His general academic interest is on 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 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. 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 at INCAE, and consultant to the World Bank for the development of the strategy and business plan for the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, and on issues related to education.
In the late 1990s, he led the research team that developed the conceptual model and facilitated the reform process of the five Central American customs offices, as part of a joint action-research initiative on trade logistics by the Harvard Center for International Development, Harvard Business School's Center for Strategy and Competition and INCAE.
Prof. Barahona has served as a consultant to companies and governments in several Latin American countries in the fields of strategy and organization. He is co-author of Costa Rica's education policy and one of the pioneers in digital government in Costa Rica. He is the author of business case studies, articles, books and book chapters on sustainable development, customs reform, trade logistics, information technologies for development and social network analysis. Before opting for an academic career, he was an entrepreneur and founder of a software company and a business consulting firm.
He currently complements his academic work by advising companies as a consultant or as a member of their board of directors.
