Бакалавриат 2025/2026

Технологическое предпринимательство

Статус: Курс обязательный (Управление цифровым продуктом)

Кто читает: Департамент бизнес-информатики

Когда читается: 3-й курс, 1 модуль

Охват аудитории: для своего кампуса

Преподаватели: Текич Желько

Язык: английский

Контактные часы: 40

Course Syllabus

Abstract

The emergence of novel and powerful technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data analytics, cloud computing, the Internet of Things, and social media has transformed innovation and entrepreneurship in significant ways affecting both, entrepreneurial process and its outcomes. These new technologies significantly accelerated experimentation with business models, opening up new opportunities for entrepreneurs and changing how value is created, delivered and captured. Digital technologies and novel business models every day enable new infrastructure, platforms, products and services, applications, and media content to be created, fertilizing the environment for the growth of startups. These new and fragile global companies – have been started by teams of two to five talented persons from anywhere in the world. Focusing on the emerging needs of the digital native population, using new low-cost methodologies and limited financial resources, startups are growing from zero to one, creating new value, and then from one to one billion, scaling globally in just a couple of years. In summary – technological innovation is critical to the survival and competitiveness of emerging and existing organizations and technology entrepreneurship is an engine for moving tech-empowered ideas to impact. This practice-oriented course lays the foundation to participate in this new business reality by adopting a dynamic, immersive approach centered on a company-sponsored hackathon. By working on authentic, context-rich problems posed by real companies, students gain experience that is both relevant and engaging, avoiding artificial startup projects with limited value. The hackathon format enables students to rapidly prototype, test ideas, and build MVPs in a high-energy environment that mirrors real-world constraints. It acts as a trigger for action, encouraging creativity, teamwork, and the rapid application of relevant tools under time pressure. By combining company-provided challenges with a time-bound hackathon format, the course develops both knowledge and practical skills essential to entrepreneurship. It prepares students not only to think like entrepreneurs but also to act as intrapreneurs, analysts, and innovators across diverse industries.

Learning Objectives

• The course is designed to help students develop the ability to recognize, evaluate, and shape technology-driven opportunities into viable business propositions. While grounded in research and theory, the course is practice-oriented and structured around an intensive, company-sponsored hackathon. This format enables students to apply entrepreneurial frameworks in a high-pressure, time-bounded environment that mirrors real-world constraints. The hackathon setting allows students to move rapidly from problem framing to ideation, prototyping, testing, and pitching, with technology serving as the pivotal enabler of new solutions. In doing so, the course develops the skills necessary to connect technology and business impact, preparing students not only to think like entrepreneurs but also to act as intrapreneurs, analysts, and innovators across diverse industries.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Upon completion of this course, a student should be able to: • Understand entrepreneurship and the essential characteristics of tech-based ventures • Understand and apply innovation theories and concepts to the rigorous identification and development of new opportunities for societal and commercial impact. • Develop problem statement and communicate problem that has to be solved • Actively use customer development methodology
• • Analyze viable business models, develop an initial business model and test its feasibility • Co-create a minimum viable product (MVP) in a group • Shape technology-based ideas into workable business concepts and learn how to test them in the marketplace. • Differentiate and distinguish the different process activities associated with new product/process/service development, inside or outside an established firm.
• • Reconcile tools and methods learned in the context of business informatics education with the need to assess and design an opportunity that will bring them to use. • Critically assess and evaluate the resource assembly junctures in the development of new ventures (whether they be within established corporations or startups). • Effectively communicate entrepreneurial initiatives in oral and in written form • Productively work in groups

Course Contents

• Tech Entrepreneurship: Intro to the course and the topic
• Entrepreneurial Ideas and Opportunities
• AI and Entrepreneurship
• How to Talk to Customers
• Problem Statement Canvas
• Business Model
• MVP and Hypothesis testing
• Intellectual Property (IP) Rights
• Money for startups
• Entrepreneurs and Negotiation

Assessment Elements

• New Product Development Hackathon
  The hackathon is an intensive problem-solving environment in which students work in teams to address authentic challenges provided by companies. Unlike traditional project work, the hackathon places students under tight time constraints, resource limitations, and real-world complexity, requiring them to make decisions quickly, prioritize effectively, and deliver tangible outcomes. By working under these conditions, students develop a range of transferable skills, including: Analytical problem-solving – breaking down complex, ambiguous challenges into solvable components. Creativity and innovation – generating and testing ideas rapidly, often in the form of prototypes or MVPs. Collaboration and teamwork – coordinating roles, managing conflict, and building on diverse perspectives. Communication and pitching – presenting solutions clearly, persuasively, and under pressure. Resilience and adaptability – learning to respond to feedback, setbacks, and changing constraints. The hackathon thus acts as both a trigger for action and a learning accelerator, providing students with a unique opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge in practice while developing the entrepreneurial, analytical, and interpersonal skills required in professional environments.
• In-Class Discussion & Engagement
  In-Class Discussion & Engagement This is not simply lecture attendance, it is ENGAGEMENT and PARTICIPATION in the lectures, with timely and relevant comments and discussion, comments linked to the previous lectures, assigned readings (including videos), personal experience, or other courses; opinion based on evidence, thinking, responding to the lecturer’s questions. On each lecture day, a student can get engagement points based on its engagement and participation in-class activities. Assessment is done by the course instructor during and immediately after each class. To get these points, the following must be done: • Attend a lecture, AND • Active and voluntary participation in class discussions (by talking or typing in chat – if online) • Being able to address the readings critically during class, thus displaying a good understanding of the subject matter • Being analytical and concise in oral interventions, i.e., backing up arguments by facts and references rather than “feeling this or that” • Monopolising the floor with fluffy, unstructured and redundant monologues will NOT be seen as a positive contribution.
• Exam
  Exam - An individual assessment combining multiple-choice questions (to test conceptual understanding) and long-answer questions (to assess application and critical thinking). The exam covers theories, frameworks, and case-based problem solving in technology entrepreneurship.

Interim Assessment

• 2025/2026 1st module
  0.4 * Exam + 0.1 * In-Class Discussion & Engagement + 0.5 * New Product Development Hackathon

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Osterwalder, A., Clark, T., & Pigneur, Y. (2010). Business Model Generation : A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=335366
• Osterwalder, A., Smith, A., Bernarda, G., & Pigneur, Y. (2014). Value Proposition Design : How to Create Products and Services Customers Want. Hoboken: Wiley. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=945730
• Ries, E. (2011). The Lean Startup : How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses. New York: Currency. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=733896

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Sahlman, W. A., Hoffman, R., Andreessen, M., & Blank, S. G. (2018). HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Entrepreneurship and Startups (featuring Bonus Article “Why the Lean Startup Changes Everything” by Steve Blank). Boston, Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1798805

Authors

• Tekich Zhelko