MAI622: AI Entrepreneurship - Assignments

Personal Assignments

Below you will find an indicative list of the course's compulsory assignments, with details about what is expected and how the assignments will be graded. More details and instructions will be provided in class and on the course's Blackboard. Each student is expected to undertake individually and independently a number of assignments, producing the deliverables described below:

Entry Survey

• Purpose: To gather baseline information about students' entrepreneurial interests, goals, and expectations for the course.
• Details: Students must complete the survey available on Blackboard. Further instructions and submission guidelines are provided in the assignment description.

Personal Videos

• Purpose: To help students articulate their entrepreneurial and professional goals in order to establish teams for the term project, while practicing concise communication skills.
• Details: Students will create a short videos introducing themselves and their entrepreneurial aspirations.

Personal Ideas Journal

• Purpose: To develop a habit of documenting potential business ideas and exploring their feasibility.
• Details: Students will maintain a running journal of ideas, capturing initial thoughts, inspiration, and potential applications. While maintaining the journal may not directly affect the grade, students are encouraged to use it actively as a creative and planning tool.

Reflection Reports on Seminars

• Purpose: To encourage students to think critically about course content, guest lectures, or personal experiences related to entrepreneurship.
• Details: Assignments will prompt students to reflect on specific readings, topics or activities. Submissions should demonstrate thoughtful engagement and practical insights. Students are expected to submit at least four write-ups (reflection reports) after attending a selection of guest lectures, which are part of the Series of Lectures in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (KEP101) of the Centre for Entrepreneurship, or watching online videos or listening to podcasts on entrepreneurship and innovation, that will be assigned by the instructor.
• Guidelines:In each write-up, the points you need to address are:
• What are the three most useful things that you learned from the speaker or session that you didn't know before, or that you hadn't thought about much before, and that you think you are likely to carry with you going forward?
• What surprised you most?
• What did you like most about the speaker or the session?
• What did you not like most about the speaker or session?

Reflection Reports on Readings

• Purpose: To help students grasp the numerous opportunities that arise from the impressive advances of AI technologies and their implications to all aspects of human activity.
• Details: Each student is expected to undertake the study of one of the following books, identify a business opportunity arising from the reading, prepare and present a business model canvas for a startup targeting that opportunity:
  • Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan (2021) "AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future"
  • Eric Topol (2019) "Deep Medicine"
  • Mustafa Suleiman (2024) "The Coming Wave"
  • Henry Kissingher, Eric Schmidt, Craig Mundie (2024) "Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit"
  • Brian Christian (2020) "The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values"
• Guidelines: The report should comprise:
  • A summary of the reading (3 page long).
  • An execute statement summarizing your proposal (1 page long).
  • A completed business model canvas analyzing your idea.

Individual Primary Market Research (PMR) Report

• Purpose: To teach students how to conduct market research and apply insights to refine a product or service.
• Details: The report should outline how students gathered information from potential users, the feedback received, and subsequent adjustments to the project. A clear methodology, key findings, and actionable insights are expected.

Peer Evaluations

• Purpose: To assess individual contributions to team projects and provide constructive feedback to peers.
• Details: Students will evaluate their teammates and receive feedback in return. Grading will consider the quality of feedback given and the evaluations received. Lack of participation or contributions to the team can result in grade deduction.

Group project

Students working in groups of 3-4 people are expected to come up with an entrepreneurial idea driven by AI technology with a strong exploitation potential and explore its transformation into a business venture or a social enterprise. The teams are required to apply the 24 steps of the Disciplined Entrepreneurship methodology, to develop a strong business and technology development plan and prepare a final oral presentation to seek funding (Venture Capital pitch), which will be submitted for participation to the Student Innovators Competition SINN (see the SINN 2022 announcement for more information). Much of the learning in MAI622 comes from the shared experience of all groups. To this end:

• All teams must regularly prepare mini slide decks, based on the work done to complete Disciplined Entrepreneurship worksheets, according to the assignments descriptions posted on Blackboard. These decks are to be uploaded through Blackboard.
• The decks will be graded and feedback will be provided on Blackboard or in-class.
• Further qualitative feedback may be provided via office hours or online.
• One or two teams will be randomly selected in each class to provide a 5-minute presentation of their deck. To gain the most value from the presentations, selected teams shall:
  1. deliver a brief pitch of the business,
  2. briefly summarize how they approach the DE step at hand,
  3. indicate to the class what kind of feedback they are specifically seeking, and
  4. take note of the feedback and use it to further improve their work.

In addition to mini slide decks for in-class presentations, each team will submit several consolidated assignments, with their specifications and requirements announced through Blackboard throughout the semester. These deliverables function as a chance to update earlier steps based on feedback, preparation for the final presentation/deliverable, and as opportunities to obtain further feedback. The Group project comprise several deliverables that will be announced throughout the semester, and will include:

• Mission statement: A report on the mission statement of the envisioned company, which clarifies your purpose and planning.
• A completed Business Model Canvas demonstrating the main elements of the proposed business plan;
• Mini slide decks that consolidate the main phases of DE’s 24 steps, along with Interim reports, comprising the completed DE24 worksheets for your term project, representing the outcome of your analysis as you follow the Disciplined Entrepreneurship Methodology, interacting with real customers, partners, providers etc to evaluate its business model. They should be submitted in the form of PDF files. The worksheets are available in the Disciplined Entrepreneurship website and you can also find them on Blackboard.
• A Financial analysis, including spreadsheet and explanatory slides;
• Oral Presentation and final pitch deck: This is a "Venture Capital Pitch," to be presented in a 10-minutes oral presentation, followed by a Q&A session. The pitch should be prepared according to guidelines and best practices discussed in class and relevant readings. The presentation should be a self-contained document (often called a "deck") with no more than 10-20 slides, which should be read-able if you email it to someone. The presentation is expected to be submitted and presented at the Student Innovators Competition SINN, organized by the University's Centre for Entrepreneurship at the end of the spring semester (see the SINN announcement for more information). All members of each team should participate in the presentation.
• Final report: The final report should present a comprehensive summary of achievements. Its structure should comprise three sections:
  1. Section 1: Updated Mission Statement and summary of findings.
  2. Section 2: Business plan.
  3. Section 3: Progress report describing (indicatively) product/service/business development, market research, business model evaluation, prototype implementation, technology stack.
  4. Section 4: Appendix with completed Disciplined Entrepreneurship Worksheets.

Instructions and Advice

Teams

Group projects and their deliverables will be done by teams of students, where each team should have no less than three and no more than four participants. All team members will receive the same grade.Splitting or rearrangement of teams will not be accepted after the third week of classes, so make sure that you have in place from the beginning clear decision-making and conflict resolution processes.

Grading

Grading of writing assignments and presentations will be based on their clarity, reasoning, and depth, as described below:

Clarity (30 points) comes from clear writing, good structure, and meticulous editing of the text. The paper receives:

• 5 points, if writing quality is poor and careless, with no real structure in the text.
• 20 points, if writing quality is good and the paper is logically structured. A few misspellings/grammar mistakes but not enough to be completely distracting.
• 30 points, if writing quality is great, the structure/logic is very clear and enhances the arguments, the paper reads very well. Little to no grammar or misspelling mistakes.

Reasoning (30 points) is based on good arguments, which are typically established upon specific phrases or passages that support the claims given. Therefore, it is expected that arguments are properly substantiated with accurate references. The paper receives:

• 5 points, if arguments are weak and unfounded.
• 15 points, if arguments are supported by a couple of examples but not enough to make a truly compelling argument.
• 30 points, if arguments are supported by various specific examples. It is obvious the student put a lot of thought into constructing a solidly constructed argument.

Depth (40 points) means that the text contains original ideas and observations, and succeeds in teaching its readers something new. The paper receives:

• 5 points, if observations are very shallow and/or trivial.
• 20 points, if the paper provides a mix of both shallow and more insightful observations.
• 40 points, if the paper provides original and insightful observations, and the student teaches the reader something new.