ICS 190 and 295
Entrepreneurship in Information Age, Fall 2011
Course Objectives and Goals
You have this great idea for a product that will change the society for ever. You want to take this idea and want to do something with it. You are very interested in bringing your idea to life. Where to start?
This course will introduce you to basic tools and techniques required to be an entrepreneur in today’s information society. Different steps required to convert your ideas of a product that you believe will revolutionize the world to the company that realizes your dream will be discussed. Techniques required for defining your product, protecting your intellectual capital, preparing business plan, raising funds to build the company, building a technical and business team, and running a successful business will form the content of the course.
This course will have regular lectures, guest lectures, and projects. In many respects, this will be a course different from most courses you have taken in ICS. We will have lots of discussions in and outside class and you will work in close teams. Your class participation in discussions is very important.
Prerequisites
Junior or higher level student in Computer Science or related area.
Collaboration Policy
Students are encouraged to work in a group for their project assignment. The assignments on the other hand should be individually done. Students can, however, feel free to discuss the assignment with their peers.
Grading Criteria
| Project 1 |
20% |
| Project 2 |
40% |
| MidTerm Exam |
25% |
| Homework |
10% |
| Class Participation |
5% |
Textbooks
The material discussed in class will come from many sources. The book used by the instructor for many topics in this course is:
Other Material
Material from many other sources will also be used. Such material will be made available to you.
Class slides will be available before each lecture.
Project
The projects will teach you how to work in a team. Each team will develop a business plan for their product. This business plan will be to build a company around their product. Different team members will take different business responsibilities for the product and the company and will help in the business plan according to their roles.
Each team will present their business plan in class. You will get 10 minutes to convince others about your product and business.
