COMP 4911 - Fall 2016

Fall 2016, COMP 4911 IT Entrepreneurship [3-0-1:3]
Lecture 1, MoWe 09:00-10:20, Rm 6602
Prof. Dekai WU, Rm 3539, 2358-6989, dekai@cs.ust.hk

You are welcome to knock on the door of the instructor any time. The TAs' office hours are posted at http://course.cs.ust.hk/comp4911/ta/.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Welcome to COMP4911!

Always check the Discussion Forum for up-to-the-minute announcements.

Discussion forum is at http://comp151.cse.ust.hk/~dekai/content/?q=forum/1. Always read before asking/posting/emailing your question. You must register for your account at the first lecture, tutorial, or lab.
Course home page is at http://www.cs.ust.hk/~dekai/4911/.
Tutorial info is at http://course.cs.ust.hk/comp4911/ta/.

ORIENTATION

Course Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course, students should be able to:

Course Description

COMP 4911. Basic elements of starting a new business in information technology; exploiting an "unfair" advantage; preparing a business plan; arranging financial support; accounting and legal requirements; exit strategy. Case studies of successful and failed ventures in Hong Kong and elsewhere. Exclusion(s): ELEC 3710 Prerequisite(s): COMP 2011 OR COMP 2012H

BOOKS

There is no textbook for COMP4911 per se, but we will rely on many books.

Blogs

HONOR POLICY

To receive a passing grade, you are required to sign an honor statement acknowledging that you understand and will uphold all policies on plagiarism and collaboration.

Plagiarism

All materials submitted for grading must be your own work. You are advised against being involved in any form of copying (either copying other people's work or allowing others to copy yours). If you are found to be involved in an incident of plagiarism, you will receive a failing grade for the course and the incident will be reported for appropriate disciplinary actions.

University policy requires that students who cheat more than once be expelled. Please review the cheating topic from your UST Student Orientation.

Warning: sophisticated plagiarism detection systems are in operation!

Collaboration

You are encouraged to collaborate in study groups. However, you must write up solutions on your own. You must also acknowledge your collaborators in the write-up for each problem, whether or not they are classmates. Other cases will be dealt with as plagiarism.

GRADING

The course will be graded on a curve, but no matter what the curve is, I guarantee you the following.

If you achieve 85% you will receive at least a A grade.
75% B
65% C
55% D

Your grade will be determined by a combination of factors:

Participation ~30%
Assignments ~70%

Examinations

Grading of COMP4911 will be based on the participation and assignments, since entrepreneurship is not a skill that can be well measured by written exams.

Participation

Business and entrepreneurship is heavily about communication between people. Science and engineering (including software engineering!) is about communication between people. To reflect this, good participation in class and/or the online forum will count for a significant proportion of the grade.

Assignments

All assignments must be submitted by 23:00 on the due date. Assignments will be collected electronically using the automated CASS assignment collection system. Late assignments cannot be accepted. Sorry, in the interest of fairness, exceptions cannot be made.

Tutorials

All information for tutorials is at http://course.cs.ust.hk/comp4911/ta/.

SYLLABUS

Date Wk Event Topic
 


2016.09.12 2 Lecture Welcome, forum registration
Admiinistrivia (honor statement, HKUST classroom conduct)
2016.09.14 2 Lecture Course overview
2016.09.19 3 Lecture Crafting your 15-second elevator speech (rounds 1 & 2); I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead ― Mark Twain 15-second elevator pitch presentations due at beginning of class
2016.09.21 3 Lecture Crafting your 15-second elevator speech (round 3); Your throughline 15-second elevator pitch presentations due at beginning of class
2016.09.26 3 Lecture Why entrepreneurship?
2016.09.28 3 Lecture Why entrepreneurship? (cont'd); Forbes' 20 Startups To Watch In 2016
2016.10.03 5 Lecture Why entrepreneurship? (cont'd) Group information and company topic due
2016.10.05 5 Lecture Apple
2016.10.10 6 Holiday The day following the Chung Yeung Festival
2016.10.12 6 Lecture SWOT examples; Why business plans; Unicorns
2016.10.17 7 Lecture Group SWOT analysis breakouts
2016.10.19 7 Lecture Group SWOT analysis breakouts
2016.10.24 8 Lecture Group SWOT analysis presentations Group midterm case studies due
2016.10.31 9 Lecture Guest lectures [LTK]: Gamers + Machine Learning = Mapping The Brain, Amy ROBINSON STERLING, MIT Media Lab (Executive Director, Eyewire); The Story and The Prototype, Dr. Mike North, Discovery Channel (host of “Prototype This!," "In The Making,” & Innovative Design” and "Outrageous Acts of Science")
2016.11.09 10 Lecture Guest lectures: Carson LINFORTH BOWLEY, Factory, Silicon Valley; Daniel ZHANG, P8; Joanna WEICo-founder, Beijing Makerspace / Indiegogo China Evangelist, ‎Indiegogo
2016.11.14 11 Lecture Guest lectures: S.L. HO, ‎Google EYE Program


dekai@cs.ust.hk
Last updated: 2016.11.27