Department of Computer Science - University of Victoria
CSC 485A + SENG 480A, 2022, Spring Semester
This course aims to give students the tools and skills to rapidly develop and transform innovative ideas (of their own choosing) into working projects utilizing advanced mobile, social, cloud, and web technologies. In particular, students will experience the style of development activity that is common in a new startup company. The project based course will be augmented by a series of lectures to accelerate learning with new web technologies, product design, agile development practices, user interface design, and project management. During the term, students will work in teams of 5 students. Each team will be closely mentored by several staff members (including the instructors and one or more members from industry). Students will gain valuable technical skills and experience working in small teams, while facing real-world challenges that include a tight schedule, hard deadlines, and self directed learning.
Projects will include designing and developing a live web or mobile system. Each team will also maintain a web page with project documentation and design documents.
See course requirements, student testimonials, and great resources at prior StartUp courses at UVic and Tel Aviv.
Please note this is a tentative schedule. The slides and other materials will be available in the resources section.
| Date | Meeting agenda | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 14 Jan, 2022 | 2:00-2:30 🔈 Course Overview and Mentor Introductions, Dr. Margaret-Anne Storey 2:30-3:00 🔈 Founder's Story, A Q&A with Juan Orrego (Cuboh) 3:00-3:10 🔈 Some Pointers about Intellectual Property for Projects, Aislinn Sirk (UVic) 3:10-3:20 ☕ Break 3:20-4:50 🔈 Ideation and Creativity, Dr. Claudia Smith (UVic) -📝Students will need a pen, paper, and ideally 3 dice for the session |
| 2 | 21 Jan, 2022 | 2:00-2:30 🔈 Founder's Story, Sam Mod (FreshWorks Studio) 2:30-3:15 🔈 Forming Teams and Selecting Ideas, Steven Myhill-Jones (Entreprenuer & Investor) 3:15-3:30 📺 How great leaders inspire action, Simon Sinek 3:30-3:45 ☕ Break 3:45-4:45 👥 Idea Pitch (Guests and Students), Storming Ideas, Forming Groups |
| 3 | 28 Jan, 2022 | 2:00-3:30 🚩 Project proposal presentations 3:30-3:45 ☕ Break 3:45-4:45 🔈 Value Proposition Canvas, Dr. Claudia Smith (Uvic) |
| 4 | 4 Feb, 2022 | 2:00-3:10 🔈 Design Thinking, Experience Design, Visual Design and Designing with Users, Dr. Margaret-Anne Storey (UVic) 3:10-3:15 ☕ Break 3:15-4:00 🔈 The Tech Stack. Guest presenters: Matthew Smith and Nick Addison (Mazumago) 4:00-4:05 ☕ Break 4:05-4:50 🔈 Startups to Enduring Products, Guest Presenter: Steve Graham (Consulting CTO and Architect) 4:50-5:30 🏢 Informal Office Hour |
| 5 | 11 Feb, 2022 | 👥 No Course Meeting in lieu of Group Work + Extra Office Hours/Feedback in ECS 104 |
| 6 | 18 Feb, 2022 | 🚩 Milestone 1 presentation - Proof Of Concept 2:00-2:05 Welcoming and Presentations setup 2:05-2:30 👥 Project 1 and Mentors' Feedback 2:30-2:55 👥 Project 2 and Mentors' Feedback 2:55-3:20 👥 Project 3 and Mentors' Feedback 3:20-3:35 ☕ Break 3:35-4:00 👥 Project 4 and Mentors' Feedback 4:00-4:25 👥 Project 5 and Mentors' Feedback 4:25-4:50 👥 Project 6 and Mentors' Feedback |
| 7 | 25 Feb, 2022 | |
| 8 | 4 Mar, 2022 | 2:00-2:15 Welcoming and Panel setup 2:15-3:45 🔈 Panel with Startup founders: Nicole Smith, Founder & CEO, Flytographer Brandon Wright, Founder & CEO, BRNKL Humaira Ahmed, Founder & CEO, Locelle Digital Inc. Brad van Vugt, Founder & CEO, Battlesnake David Yarish, Founder & VP Mobile, Tutela Technologies 3:45-4:00 ☕ Wrap up the conversation with Panelists + Break 4:00-5:00 👥 Group Work + Open space to talk with Teaching Team |
| 9 | 11 Mar, 2022 | 🚩 Milestone 2 presentation - Release Candidate 2:00-2:05 Welcoming and Presentations setup 2:05-2:30 👥 Project 1 and Q&A / Mentors' Feedback 2:30-2:55 👥 Project 2 and Q&A / Mentors' Feedback 2:55-3:20 👥 Project 3 and Q&A / Mentors' Feedback 3:20-3:35 ☕ Break 3:35-4:00 👥 Project 4 and Q&A / Mentors' Feedback 4:00-4:25 👥 Project 5 and Q&A / Mentors' Feedback 4:25-4:50 👥 Project 6 and Q&A / Mentors' Feedback |
| 10 | 18 Mar, 2022 | 2:00-2:40 🔈 Intellectual Property, Aislinn Sirk (UVic) 2:40-2:50 ☕ Break 2:50-4:00 🔈 Tales from a Technical CEO, Rob Bennett (ViaTec) 4:00-4:10 ☕ Break 4:10-4:50 🔈 Data Privacy, Sean Falconer, (Skyflow) |
| 11 | 25 Mar, 2022 | 👥 No Course Meeting in lieu of Group Work + Extra Office Hours |
| 12 | 1 Apr, 2022 | 🚩 Milestone 3 presentation - Public live BETA 2:00-2:05 Welcoming and Presentations setup 2:05-2:30 👥 staShare presentation and Q&A / Mentors' Feedback 2:30-2:55 👥 Slacker presentation and Q&A / Mentors' Feedback 2:55-3:20 👥 SheTrains presentation and Q&A / Mentors' Feedback 3:20-3:35 ☕ Break 3:35-4:00 👥 DevXP presentation and Q&A / Mentors' Feedback 4:00-4:25 👥 Tandem presentation and Q&A / Mentors' Feedback 4:25-4:50 👥 Decidr presentation and Q&A / Mentors' Feedback 4:50-5:30 🎉 Celebration of projects accomplishments (for students, mentors, and invited guests) |
| 15 Apr, 2022 | 🏁 Final submission (submission by GitHub and Brightspace) 👥 No Course Meeting |
Mentoring Staff
- Rob Bennett, COO and Program Director, ViaTec
- Steve Graham, Consulting CTO and Architect
- Sam Mod, CEO and Co-Founder, Freshworks Studio
- Steven Myhill-Jones, Entrepreneur/Investor and Founder of Lattitude Geographics
- Brandon Wright, Founder and CEO, BRNKL
- Alessandra Maciel Paz Milani, PhD Student, UVic and Course TA
- Claudia Smith, Professor, School of Business, UVic , Guest Course Instructor
- Margaret-Anne Storey, Professor, Computer Science, UVic, Course Instructor
Additional Presenters:
- Humaira Ahmed, Locelle Digital Inc.
- Sean Falconer, Head of Developer Relations, Skyflow
- Juan Orrego, Cuboh
- Aislinn Sirk, Research Partnerships and Innovation Manager, UVic
- Matthew Smith and Nick Addison, Mazumago
- Nicole Smith, Flytographer
- Brad van Vugt, Co Founder & CEO, Battlesnake
- David Yarish, Tutela
Alumni Mentors and Presenters from prior UVic Startup courses:
- Alexey Zagalsky (Founder of the course at UVic and Tel Aviv!)
- Cliff McCollum
- Ian Bull
- Gregory Schier
- Eirini Kalliamvakou
- Arie van Deursen
Teams and Projects
| Project Name | Team Members | Tagline | Project Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decidr | Carlson, Davis; Zlonicky, Joe | Because democracy is hard | Github link |
| Tandem (previously Carpooling) | Dunn, Marcus; Hollier, Cobey; Hill, Samantha; Johnson, Douglas; Park, Jae | Carpooling made easy. Carpooling made social. | Github link |
| DevXP (previously DevEx) | Enns, Keanu; Korsch, Sabrina; Petrone, Chris; Robinson, Derek; Wilkes, Brennan | Empowering developers to create enterprise-quality cloud infrastructure in minutes | Github link |
| SheTrains | Cusi, Tristan; Lyne, Shaun; Chiang, Gordon; Newcombe, Dave; Van Brummelen, Matthew | Learn. Predict. Achieve. | private repository, request group members access |
| Slacker (previously SlackLine) | Kosman, Sam; Micetich, Brendan; Bonnici, Karl; Borinaga, Dianna; Huang, Yiming | Connecting slackliners one line at a time | Github link |
| staSHARE | Luong, Nam; Nguyen, Huy; Donaldson, Isaac; Felea-Motet, Mark; Smith, Kersten | Stash it, Share, it, Search it. | Github link |
Office Hour: By appointment and by zoom. Friday 11:00am-12:00pm over zoom (please message on Slack or send email to set an alternative meeting time)
Contact email: startup.programming@gmail.com
License
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. This doesn't include the students' projects, which are hosted on separate repositories and each have their own license.
Intellectual Property Ownership
Students are asked to consult with the project participant agreement. UVic will agree to waive its interest in such IP under the following conditions:
- A class list and list of associated projects (contained with the attached Project Participant Agreement) is provided to ORS (via RPKM) within 1 month of the start date of the course, and
- That the students make their IP developed during the course freely available to other students taking the course for learning purpose only for the duration of the course
- Each student participating signs the attached “Project Participation Agreement” (PPA) where they acknowledge they will not use any faculty IP/University owned IP in their project.
For projects that may wish to commercialize their projects, a different will be used (and discussed in class). More details will be posted here shortly.