EDUCATOR

Equipping Innovators with the Capacity to Build and Lead

Tina is a Lecturer and faculty member at the USC Iovine and Young Academy, where she also directs the annual Innovation Quest program and a Gen AI grant for venture acceleration. Tina guest lectures at top academic institutions, like Harvard, Stanford, and University of California at Berkeley. In her classroom, Tina equips future innovators and founders with essential toolkits to build modern brands, drive innovation, and develop sustainable business playbooks.

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Courses, Grants & Convenings

This dynamic course equips students with essential strategies to architect modern brands and foster authentic communities. Explore the interconnected realms of the Creator, Attention, and Relationship Economies while gaining insights into AI, blockchain principles, network effects, social artifact creation, and loyalty love loops. Through real-world applications and emerging frameworks, students will develop the skills to design and scale community-driven brands in the evolving digital and modern brand landscape.

Lecturer & Creator, The Modern Brand and Community Playbook (ACAD 402)

Director, USC’s Iovine and Young Academy's Annual Innovation Quest

The Academy's Innovation Quest offers a series of immersive experiences that aim to support and accelerate qualified student-led ventures at the intersection of business, technology, and creativity. This yearlong immersive journey of programming is designed to empower founders, foster innovation, and create a lasting impact within the Academy and Trojan community, serving as a catalyst for innovation and visions realized.

Iovine and Young Academy's 2025 Innovation Quest

Principal Investigator, OORI Gen AI & Society Grant, OORI, USC

The Generative AI & Society Grant, a Verizon-funded initiative administered through the USC Office of Research and Innovation (2024–2026), supports cross-disciplinary, student-driven innovation at the intersection of generative AI and society. Directed through the Iovine and Young Academy’s Innovation Quest, the grant provides resources, mentorship, and funding to student teams developing new AI-enabled ventures. Since its launch, the program has advanced dozens of projects through Ignite Grants, a university-wide Gen AI Hackathon, and the annual Iovine and Young Academy Venture Showcase, which now includes a dedicated Gen AI track. As Principal Investigator, Tina Sharkey collaborates with Business of Innovation faculty Chris Swain, JM Arnoult (2024–2025), Thomas Dadourian (2025–2026), David Gerber (Viterbi), Gabriel Kahn (Annenberg, 2024–2025), and Stephen Aguilar (Rossier, 2024–2025).

Lecturer, Marketing for Startups (IDSN 529)

This forward-looking course equips students with strategic frameworks to design and execute modern marketing plans from the ground up. Students will explore pre-market testing and validation, go-to-market strategy, lifecycle marketing, and social artifact creation while layering in the latest applications of AI and GEO. Through case studies, guest lectures, and applied assignments, the course provides a toolkit for building, testing, and scaling ventures in a rapidly evolving marketing landscape.

Co-Lecturer, The Garage Experience (ACAD 475B)

The Garage Experience is an intensive capstone course designed to propel student-led ventures toward market readiness. Through a hands-on approach, students refine business models, brand strategy, and market entry plans while developing leadership skills, team dynamics, and founder resilience. Rooted in Challenge-Based Learning, the course integrates disruptive innovation, market analysis, and investor communication, equipping students with the tools to craft compelling business cases and strategic roadmaps. By the end of ACAD 475b, founders will have the clarity, skills, and strategies needed to successfully launch and scale their ventures

IDSN 545 Integrative Project is a project-based course that uses human-centered design methodologies to identify and explore a specific problem space or context in small, diverse teams. The course is faculty mentored and requires students to apply parallel learning and discovery from the core courses in the program. Through successful completion, students deliver a tangible project while gaining deeper conceptual and practical understanding, and developing applied competencies at the intersection of design, business, and technology.

Co-Lecturer, Integrated Project (IDSN 545)

Creator and Host, The Tokenization of Everything Convening

Entrepreneurs, designers, journalists and thought leaders convened at Iovine and Young Academy’s “Web3: The Tokenization of Everything” hosted by Tina Sharkey, to discuss Web3, NFTs, DeFi, and the metaverse.

The event examined how tokens, technologies and communities enabled by web3 are fueling and reimagining the arts, business and technology.