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1-Week Intensive

OpenClaw Strategy

Walk into the next leadership conversation with an OpenClaw strategy – and a working agent to prove it.

Dirk Hofmann Prof. Stephanie Dick Prof. Suraj Srinivasan
Dirk Hofmann · Stephanie Dick · Suraj Srinivasan HDSR Board Member · Simon Fraser University · Harvard Business School

Duration

1 Week

May 27 – Jun 2, 2026

Live

4 × 60 min

~4 hours total

Async build

Self-paced

Personal AI tutor

Early bird

$1,050 $1,250

10 early bird places

No coding requiredPaid Claude plan neededHDSI certificate included

From the team behind the HDSR Agentic AI Intensive. Trusted by leaders at Amazon, Google, Nike, American Express, and Workday.

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Everything you need to decide – in one page.

or apply now if you are ready to enroll

"The best executive course I have ever attended."

Franco Denari, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer
"Every CEO, every software company, every technology organization – the question is the same: What's your OpenClaw strategy?"
Jensen Huang, NVIDIA GTC Keynote, March 2026
Why the question has teeth

The OpenClaw moment is no longer hypothetical. The question now lands on every leader's desk.

Most leaders have read about OpenClaw. Many have a position on it. Few can explain the security model, the platform war, or what it means for their vendor strategy. That gap – between perceived readiness and actual readiness – is where organizations get caught.

The platform war

OpenAI hired the creator. Anthropic banned him. The agent layer is contested territory.

OpenAI brought OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger in-house. Anthropic launched Claude Dispatch, then removed OpenClaw from Claude subscriptions. 350,000+ GitHub stars and growing. Leaders need to understand the landscape, not just pick a vendor. TechCrunch, April 2026

The security reality

Thirteen security vulnerabilities published in April alone. Most exposed instances are unprotected.

OpenClaw shipped its most technically dense security patch in the project's history this month, including a critical privilege escalation flaw. Security researchers found that 63% of publicly exposed OpenClaw instances run without any authentication layer. Blink Security Research, April 2026

The automation trap

76% of executives see agents as co-workers. Yet 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by 2027.

The gap is not technology – it is organizational redesign. Organizations that fundamentally redesign workflows are three times more likely to see real financial impact from AI. Most bolt AI onto broken processes and wonder why returns disappoint. BCG/MIT, 2026; McKinsey, 2025; Gartner, 2025

Bernard Marr, writing in Forbes: every company will need a strategy for doing business in an environment where AI agents are transforming every job, every organization and every industry. For most, the biggest risk is being unprepared.

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"I left with a clear roadmap for where and how agentic AI can drive meaningful impact in my business. In typical Harvard fashion, they over-delivered."
Jill Tarallo, AI-Driven COO, Rollick · HDSI Intensive participant
How the course works

You configure, you don't code. The insight comes from the building.

You make the decisions about what your agent does, what it doesn't, and where its boundaries are. The technology executes your decisions. What you learn about agentic AI – and about your own organization – emerges from the experience of building, not from a lecture about strategy.

What you build

Your AI Chief of Staff, using Claude

Email triage. Meeting preparation. Research briefings. One workflow of your choosing. Scoped using the AGENT framework. Built with Claude, so you can communicate with your agent from your phone, desktop, or existing workflow. No local installation. No terminal. Requires a paid Claude plan.

Why OpenClaw

OpenClaw is the case study. Claude is the tool.

OpenClaw was inspired by Claude Code – the same agentic architecture, open-sourced and self-hosted. You will study its architecture, its security model, and what the April vulnerabilities reveal. Installing OpenClaw responsibly takes longer than one week. You build with Claude, the platform OpenClaw was modeled on.

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What you walk away with

Three things. Each reinforces the others.

Strategy

An OpenClaw strategy

Understand the architecture, the security model, the platform war, and what the April vulnerabilities reveal. Leave able to brief your board on what OpenClaw means for your organization – and what to do about it.

Build

A working AI Chief of Staff

Three workflows from your actual role, configured using Claude. Email triage, meeting prep, research briefings – scoped by you, built by you. You use it starting the morning after the course ends.

Manifesto

Your Agentic AI Manifesto

A one-page declaration: what your agent does and doesn't do, what this experience revealed about your organization, and the governance question you now know needs answering. Required for your certificate.

The strategy emerges from the build. You understand what agentic AI means for your organization by configuring one for your own workflow.

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Your week at a glance

Four live sessions. Self-paced build. One showcase.

Wed, May 27
The Spark
60 min live
Thu, May 28
Build Briefing
60 min live
Fri – Mon AM
Build your AI Chief of Staff
Self-paced with AI tutor
Mon, Jun 1
HBS Guest Lecture
60 min live
Tue, Jun 2
Showcase
60 min live

Full session details, faculty per session, and build methodology in the course outline.

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Program details

DatesWed 27 May – Tue 2 Jun 2026
Format4 live sessions + self-paced buildPersonal AI tutor between sessions
Live time~4 hours required4 live sessions including HBS guest lecture
Investment$1,050 early bird $1,250Only 10 early bird places
Pre-requisitePaid Claude planRequired for hands-on build. Setup guidance in pre-work.
CertificateCertificate of completionIssued by HDSI
Pre-work"The OpenClaw Moment" by Dirk HofmannUnder review by HDSR · + demo videos + AI tutor onboarding

Ready to lead the OpenClaw conversation at your organization?

$1,050 early bird · 8 places · May 27 – Jun 2, 2026

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Faculty

Learn from the people who wrote the research

Participants read the thesis before the first session. The author teaches the course.

Dirk Hofmann

Dirk Hofmann

Co-Founder, CEO DAIN Studios. HDSR Board Member.

Author of "The OpenClaw Moment." Leads opening lecture, deep dive, and co-closes.

Prof. Stephanie Dick

Prof. Stephanie Dick

Simon Fraser University · HDSR Board Member

Historian of AI, computing, and mathematics. The human and ethical dimension of the agentic moment.

Prof. Suraj Srinivasan

Prof. Suraj Srinivasan

Harvard Business School · Chair, Digital Value Lab (D³ Institute)

Corporate governance, AI-driven transformation, and board oversight of agentic systems.

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Who this is for

Leaders who want to understand autonomous AI by doing, not by reading

C-suite and senior leaders

You need a clear-eyed view of where agentic AI creates value, where it creates risk, and what your organization should do next. You want to arrive at that view from experience.

Heads of strategy and transformation

Your board wants an agent strategy. A leader who has never delegated a task to an autonomous agent cannot credibly lead an organization through this transformation.

Technology leaders facing the "too early" objection

This course gives you the AGENT framework, the evidence base, and the language to have the leadership conversation with confidence.

Innovation and product leaders

Separate signal from noise. Understand what OpenClaw-style agents actually do, where the security boundaries are, and what responsible deployment looks like.

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In their words

From past HDSI participants

"I left with a clear roadmap for where and how agentic AI can drive meaningful impact in my business. In typical Harvard fashion, they over-delivered."

Jill Tarallo
Jill Tarallo
AI-Driven COO, Rollick

"The best executive course I have ever attended."

Franco Denari
Franco Denari
Chief Strategy & Growth Officer

"This program has been truly transformative. The use of actual artificial intelligence is absolutely amazing."

Paul Michael Miles
Paul Michael Miles
Past Participant

"As CIO, it's my responsibility to craft our AI strategy and budget. This course gave me a solid foundation for building and scaling our strategy."

David Friedman
David Friedman
Chief Information Officer
Common questions

Before you enroll

You configure, you do not code. No terminal, no local installation, no debugging alone. You make the decisions about what your agent does and where its boundaries are. Your Chief of Staff is built using Claude. This course develops leadership judgment about autonomous systems, not technical implementation skills.
Yes. A paid Claude plan (Pro or Team) is required for the hands-on build component of the course. This is a separate cost from the program fee. If you do not yet have a Claude subscription, we will provide setup guidance as part of the pre-work.
No. OpenClaw was inspired by Claude Code – the same agentic architecture, open-sourced and self-hosted. Installing and securing OpenClaw responsibly takes longer than one week, and the April security disclosures make clear why that matters. Instead, you study OpenClaw as a case study – architecture, security model, governance implications – and build your Chief of Staff using Claude, the platform OpenClaw was modeled on.
Four live sessions (Wednesday 60 min, Thursday 60 min, Monday 60 min with Harvard Business School's Suraj Srinivasan, Tuesday 60 min). Approximately two hours of AI tutor-guided self-paced work per day during the build period. Pre-work takes one to two hours.
Yes. A certificate of completion is awarded to participants who attend the four live sessions (or watch recordings) and submit a completed Agentic AI Manifesto. Issued by HDSI.
Dirk Hofmann's "The OpenClaw Moment: Why Every Leader Needs an Agent Workforce Strategy," currently under review by Harvard Data Science Review. You read the research before the first session. The author teaches the course.
The HDSR Agentic AI Intensive is a 2.5-week program that gives leaders a comprehensive framework for evaluating and governing all agentic AI systems. This 1-week OpenClaw Strategy Intensive is a focused, build-first sprint: you study the OpenClaw moment as a case study and configure your own AI Chief of Staff using Claude. The two are complementary. Some participants will do both. This course is designed to stand alone for leaders who want to start with hands-on experience.
Details on cancellation and refunds will be provided at checkout. Contact info@hdsrcourses.org with any questions before enrolling.

Bring an answer to the table.

May 27 – Jun 2, 2026 · $1,050 early bird $1,250

Ready to enroll? Apply now