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I am an Associate Professor and entrepreneurship center Director.  In this capacity, I have developed an experiential exercise called the Online Venture Challenge.  Students in teams of four +/- build a Mission Driven E-Commerce website, and try to make as much money as they can within a month.  All profits go to charity.  Donation buttons are not allowed. All revenue must come from sales of a product or a service. 

Nine current examples are seen below the text of this email.  They will be live until Tuesday night.  A typical team in this class raises about $500 from 200 unique users...which implies that this assignment forces the discipline of presenting a compelling value proposition to strangers.  At least two fantastic real businesses have been borne out of some version of this pedagogy, including www.govoluntouring.com and www.ethicaldeal.com. 

In my class, (online) students run this business and eventually make a presentation that describes what they learned and how they might grow a bigger business based on this pilot.  I mark these two assignments along 20 lines (i.e. sustainable competitive advantage, pageviews, personal aspirations, number of transactions, etc.).  I am writing to recruit professors who would like more information on assigning a version of this exercise in their courses (and marking it however they like, obviously).  My vision is to ultimately grow the Online Venture Challenge into a round-the-clock, round-the-world, intercollegiate competition.

Geoff Archer, PhD

Associate Professor & Director of

The Eric C. Douglass Centre for Entrepreneurial Studies

Royal Roads University

Victoria, BC

(250)391-2645

geoff.archer@royalroads.ca

EXAMPLES

http://morganthemonkey.webs.com/

http://Supportuganda.org

http://www.supportourvets.ca/

http://buildavillage.webs.com/

http://www.kidsforsickkids.webs.com/

http://busyb.webs.com/

http://www.causeforclothes.com/

www.wishboneforwishes.com

http://www.photophilanthropist.com/