Academic program
Why join think-cell's academic program?
Equip your students with the PowerPoint charting software trusted by 89 of the Fortune 100 companies and 9 of the top 10 consulting firms to create impactful data-driven presentations.
Students will polish their ever-important data literacy skills, create compelling class presentations, and add an in-demand skill to their resumes.
In addition to global academic licensing, think-cell each semester supports faculty, administrators and students at US-based schools through free virtual or in-person training sessions and hands-on workshops. Of course, you can always refer to our manual and video tutorials to learn more.
Our academic program is structured to offer all of these benefits to partner schools at no cost.
Learn why Randy Allen, Senior Lecturer at Cornell, recommends using think-cell to all her MBA students. See more faculty testimonials.
See some of the schools that have already joined the program
9 of the top 10 US business schools partner with us
According to U.S. News & World Report
Many top schools such as Berkeley Haas, Chicago Booth, Michigan Ross, MIT Sloan, Northwestern Kellogg, Stanford GSB and UPenn Wharton partner with think-cell to offer free licensing to their students, faculty, and staff. See below for a list of think-cell's partner schools in the US.
What our student ambassadors say

I used to dread creating charts and other data visualization pieces until I started using think-cell. Now I actually look forward to exploring the many ways I can bring numbers to life with think-cell's numerous features!

I learned about think-cell a few years before business school after working with some consultants. I was amazed at how quickly they created visually stunning yet complex charts and graphs. During my first year at Tuck, I explored think-cell to develop that skill-set, which provided a distinct value-add to my first-year project team and allowed me to better contribute to my summer internship!

think-cell has been a very intuitive charting tool that I came across during my MBA program. We have been able to use it at various case competitions to create professional looking slides and be able to save lots of time. I would certainly recommend this tool to any student looking to make themselves more valuable to future potential employers.

The amount of time saved by using think-cell cannot be overstated! Becoming efficient with this tool will benefit you in your academic and professional life – that has certainly been the case for me.

think-cell has really taken my presentations to the next level. Whether it’s for a class project or a case competition, being able to easily use data in a visual way to help me tell my story has been a game-changer. The Gantt chart feature in particular helped my team quickly create an easy to understand implementation plan for our proposed solution in the 2019 Student Case Competition for the American College of Healthcare Executives and helped us take first place.

think-cell is by far one of the best Microsoft PowerPoint add-ons. I worked at a Big 4 in client service for 6 years before business school and we would spend early mornings and late nights manually aligning text boxes and building charts, which were less value-add than time spent. think-cell's waterfall function and smart align mechanisms have saved me so much time in these areas!
What faculty members say

It is vital that students enter the workplace with the ability to communicate through data. think-cell allows students to quickly determine the best representation of their data so that the data can tell a story. Therefore, we require think-cell certification of all new undergraduates, as well as required assignments throughout the curriculum.

We use think-cell in our required Leadership Communication course. It is an excellent tool that faculty can easily integrate into assignments on data visualization. Company support was exceptionally helpful, designing a custom demo to fit with our learning objectives. Students appreciate how the functions are embedded in Excel and PowerPoint — programs they already use regularly — and the efficiency think-cell offers.

The ability to generate compelling visual displays of quantitative information that support a narrative and drive decision making has increasingly become "table stakes" and a differentiator among rising talent in organizations. I can think of no more practical tool than think-cell to help students sharpen those transferable skills for their future careers.

Undoubtedly, think-cell is an extremely useful and quickly applicable program for applied assignments and projects. The transformation that I saw from each class was astounding.
How to become a partner and get involved
We offer our software for free to academic organizations, given that they only use the software for education and public research. Administrative work, e.g., at university hospitals, is not covered by this program.
We ask academic organizations to link to think-cell's web site from their own web site to provide students and faculty with the most reliable information about our product. This is a vital part of the academic program.
If you would like to apply, please download and review our Software License Agreement for Academic/Nonprofit Use. It has to be signed by a senior person that can bind your school to the terms of the agreement, e.g., an IT director, dean or professor. Please email the signed agreement to our academics team.
If you need more information, feel free to reach out to Jonas Gerhard, Head of Academic Programs at think-cell. He will not only help you with setting up the partnership, but can also arrange for virtual and in-site demos and trainings for any audience based in the US.
- Students
- Get free access to industry-trusted software. Interested in hosting a think-cell training session for your student organization? Contact us to share your request.
- Faculty
- Incorporate think-cell into your curriculum with helpful resources or a live or virtual training from think-cell.
- Administrators
- Organize a think-cell training for your faculty and staff to get them up to speed on the latest industry tools. think-cell will run a live or virtual training session for programs such as student orientation or MBA career skill building.