Yesterday in my class on Entrepreneurism, 9 groups presented their business plans. All students were from Information and Computer Sciences and the course was only a quarter — about 10 weeks — course. It is very interesting to see what innovative ideas these students came up with. Give the short time, their business plans — or the ideas to build businesses based on technical products — were truly impressive. Starting from Virtual Tourism to Social Networks (the first and the last presentations) it was fascinating to see what products were on their mind. Many of these are definitely the products that will emerge soon. It appears that at least 4 groups are very serious to take their products to the next stage. They are going to try to build on their projects towards a real company.
What students learnt, they will know. I do know that I learnt a big lesson. Young students are innovative and they want to do things. We in academia try to train them only in one direction. This is particularly true in engineering courses. It would be a good idea to have courses like this so students who are innovative and wants to pursue this kind of career could do that.
This was my first time. I found that during the whole quarter, students were more engaged than in most courses that I have taught. They were very enthusiastic and willing to go extra mile.
So this was definitely one of the most unique and enjoyable classes that I taught. It will be interesting to see how many students pursue their ideas and build something interesting. Even is one company gets formed from this class, I’d be very happy.