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  • 1.  Entrepreneurial Project course

    Posted 09-27-2022 07:59
    I am looking for new ideas and current thinking for an Entrepreneurial Project type course where students develop their business idea. 

    My current setup is to have students submit their ideas, bundle them into teams around the best ideas and then develop these through workshops (business model, estimating market size, USP...). Finally they have to put together a pitch to investors (repeated in a couple of pitching workshops) and coherently write everything in a supporting document with similar structure.

    I want to revamp the course so looking for fresh ideas!

    What is your setup? Any good materials/frameworks/workshops/resources you use?

    Many thanks! All comments and suggestions really appreciated.

    Best regards,
    Ivan Zupic
    Lecturer in Entrepreneurship
    Goldsmiths, University of London 


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    Ivan Zupic
    Goldsmiths, University of London
    SURBITON
    +38631872334
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  • 2.  RE: Entrepreneurial Project course

    Posted 09-28-2022 07:28
    Hello Ivan,

    I complement my entrepreneurship classes with a project in which students design and craft a playable game prototype as part of their assessment. Teams of no more than six students had to present a tabletop or digital game/simulation. Their game would provide opportunities to examine entrepreneurial activity in a competitive market and be evaluated as a learning tool. The game should allow players to understand the basic concepts of our course, covering at least two of the described learning outcomes. This project would be developed throughout the entire semester. The groups could present an entirely new game/simulation design or a modified (redesigned) version of commercial games/simulations.

    There are many different conceptual representations to understand business and entrepreneurial activity. I chose game design based on the possibilities that games open up to create these representations as dynamic conceptual models. Games have the capacity to tell stories and emulate the real world. Furthermore, games can stimulate our imaginations, not just for practical applications but as a cognitive exercise, making them a useful tool to mediate the learning process of design thinking.
    In one of the game projects, the game Tackle, students worked with an unbalanced design in which players assume characters with different resources to start it. This design was created to represent and discuss inequalities. To this end, playing as a white male entrepreneur, for example, give the player an easier path to success. Conversely, if a player assumes the role of a black woman, they face more difficulties and constraints to reach the same spot.

    This activity attempts to bring to the classroom the ambiguity and uncertainty presented in the entrepreneurial environment in a space where risks can be taken, failure is fun, and taboos can be challenged.

    Best,
    Wilian Gatti
    Assistant Professor
    Rennes School of Business

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    Wilian Gatti Junior
    Rennes School of Business
    Rennes
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