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Detaillierte Informationen zur Lehrveranstaltung finden Sie auf der Homepage des Lehrstuhls unter https://sust.ris.uni-due.de
Please consult our webpage for information: https://sust.ris.uni-due.de
Students should have a great interest in digital technologies, their usage and implementation. We will have room for discussion on upsides and downsides of digital technologies. To be able to follow the course and work actively on the projects, you should have basic knowledge about entrepreneurship in general and application scenarios of digital technologies. We strongly recommend to familiarize with standard literature upfront of the course (see below).
About
Our projects are concerned with societies’ pressing issues represented by the sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN). There are two projects offered in collaboration with the chair’s partners. In a third project, you will be able to work on a self-designed project in a team. In these master projects, you engage practically with challenges of the partners’ domain. You will deal with theory in context to digital entrepreneurship, usage and implementation of data, design and sustainability.
Project (A) – Collaboration with our partner Change Clubs
Change Club is an initiative driven by the goal to change our individual lives towards more sustainable living and help each other doing it. Its method is to bring together groups of people to make their lives more sustainable, e. g. friends, neighbourhoods or working colleagues. They equip them with knowledge and tools to engage in individual sustainability challenges for our (daily) lives. The content exists, only an app is missing to accompany the endeavour and design a community-building platform.
For this project, Change Club is designing an MVP for a web app. The app will offer features like tracking the own carbon emissions’ footprint, connect group members among each other and with different groups. ‘Change Modules’ offer knowledge and tools for Club members in different categories like mobility, biodiversity or food, to solve challenges and adapt the own lifestyle.
In this project, students support Change Club to build an MVP, a minimum viable product. According to feasibility and skills, the students are grouped together to contribute to different tasks.
1 A group of students will help the technical team under supervision of a senior developer to program the app. This involves coding. It may mean that students have to learn new coding skills.
2 A group of students support with research for the product, the target group and the market.
3 All students will contribute to the testing and evaluation phase of the app and prospective steps in the future.
The first three months (October – December) will be most intense. This is a real project that is intended to get off the ground until the end of this year. Hence, students experience in a real case tasks of a start-up-like project. This concerns project management, development and testing of an MVP and team experience with technical and management teams of Change Club’s.
The students will meet and exchange regularly with members of Change Club’s. The group of students concerned with the technical parts will meet very regularly with (senior) developers to be able to contribute to sprints.
For this master project, it is expected that students present results, experiences and learnings in a mid-term presentation, a final presentation and a written report. Through these evaluations, they shall
• Illustrate their contributions to the app,
• Analyse Change Club’s businesss model,
• contextualise their activities within an overall start-up endeavour,
• critically reflect upon their learning journey throughout the project.
Project (B) – Collaboration with our partner Ocean Protocol Foundation
Ocean Protocol Foundation is working towards a New Data Economy that redistributes the power over data to the data’s owners and enables them to capture value from it. Based on open protocols for data governance and decentralization, Ocean develops and applies blockchain technologies and AI, facilitating data and building on a community of different contributors, like data scientists and tech builders.
Regular data challenges facilitated by Ocean call up data scientists to build Machine Learning models on available public data. In this master project, students in groups from 3-5 can pick from different data challenges with existing ML models from the past and build a case around it. This way, they can promote a cause and can actively build solutions with the help of existing data and an ML model. For example, on basis of an ML model and data from a data challenge on weather forecasting, the groups of students can develop entrepreneurial ideas or a project that helps them to build a solution for a problem that exists. That means, they investigate problem domains related to weather forecasting and then use their analytical, problem-solving and creative skills to make a case they want to promote. For this, they have to understand and interpret the value and relevance they can capture from the data. With help of the existing ML model and the data, the students build a solution for their case. This can become e. g. an idea for a business venture, a solution for organizations, or an activistic cause they want to address.
The students will be provided with the relevant data and the ML model. A member of Ocean Protocol will engage through input on the different cases, Ocean Protocol and insights and perspectives from practice and industry. If the students are interested in building a business case, they can gain support and benefit from existing infrastructure both at Place Beyond Bytes and Ocean Protocol.
Throughout the project, the students have to create deliverables that are outlined in the course (depend on the data challenge they choose). In a mid-term evaluation, a final presentation and a written report, they present their findings and reflections. Through these evaluations, they shall
• demonstrate their understanding of the data’s value and relevance
• argue for the case they build on basis of the data and the solution they aim to offer
• present their solution in terms of context (e. g. market) target groups, potential stakeholders and key partners and implications for the cause they want to promote (e. g. entrepreneurial, organizational, activist …)
• contextualise both picked data challenge (problem domain) and their solution in wider, societal realm
• critically reflect upon their learning journey throughout the project.
Project (C) - YOUR digital venture
This student project is open for master students at Faculty of Computer Science, and for students of other faculties (E3). The projects are focused on taking the first steps towards producing a digital venture that helps to solve societies’ most pressing issues, the sustainable development goals. Small teams of three to five students explore pressing problems and create a potential solution in the form of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). They develop a business model (Teece, 2010) for their solution and use the MVP to validate core assumptions of this business model (Blank, 2013).
As part of the project, you will take part in the Startup Olympics that take place over a weekend in November (Nov. 15. – 17.). The participation is mandatory. Participation fee is covered for students in this course.
The Startup Olympics require a weekend-long full-day commitment from all students. The benefits from this are great: mentoring, support and workshops on business plan and concept modelling, pitching and marketing.
The master project will comprise sessions addressing
• idea development
• problem space research
• tools for research on market, target groups, stakeholders
• pitching
To pass the course, you will have to deliver several presentations of your team’s results, including interim research results and MVP. It is expected that you build an MVP throughout the course that shows concrete process and adaption according to your research. Both MVP and business case are presented at the final presentation.
Grading
Project (A) will be evaluated on basis of a mid-term evaluation (10%), a final presentation (40%) and a written report (50%).
Project (B) and (C) will be evaluated on basis of the participation at the Startup Olympics including a follow-up (5%), a mid-term evaluation (10%), a final presentation (35%) and a written report (50%). It is expected that the teams will continue their work towards the finalization of the report, where considerable progress throughout the semester shall be visible.
Lehrinhalte
In these three projects you are equipped with relevant tools, knowledge and hands-on experience in digital innovation and entrepreneurship, data and digital technologies.
Exptected Outcomes
At the end of the project, students will have produced or contributed to an MVP, a pitch deck and a report laying out their endeaour and activities. All of these may be used to progress further and for further promoting the students’ cause.
To receive continued support and develop your idea further after the semester, you can become part of Place Beyond Bytes. There, you benefit from co-working spaces and facilities, a growing network and access to the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Ruhr area, specifically Duisburg and Essen, a growing co-creation space for young, like-minded entrepreneurial students as well as support and access to digital technologies and knowledge and support with these (e. g. GPU clusters, ML- and other AI-related knowledge). Workshops, consultation and exchange with other (student) entrepreneurs will be offered as well. |
