SENG 480A Spring, 2024
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 | 12 Jan, 2024 | 1:30-2:15 🔈 Course Overview and Mentor Introductions, Dr. Margaret-Anne Storey 2:15-2:30 🔈 Some Pointers about Intellectual Property for Projects, Aislinn Sirk (UVic) 2:30-2:50 ☕ Break 2:50-3:30 🔈 Founder's Story, Humaira Ahmed (Best Human) 3:30-4:10 🔈 Founder's Story, Brandon Wright (BRNKL) |
| 2 | 19 Jan, 2024 | 1:30-2:20 🔈 Design Thinking, Experience Design, Visual Design and Designing with Users, Dr. Margaret-Anne Storey (UVic) 2:20-3:10 🔈 Ideation and Creativity, Dr. Claudia Smith (UVic) -📝Students will need a pen and paper 3:10-3:20 ☕ Break 3:20-4:20 👥 Idea Pitch (Guests and Students), Storming Ideas, Forming Groups |
| 3 | 26 Jan, 2024 | 1:30-2:50 🚩Project proposal presentations 2:50-3:00 ☕ Break 3:00-4:20 🔈 Value Proposition Canvas, Dr. Claudia Smith (Uvic) |
| 4 | 2 Feb, 2024 | 1:30-3:00 🔈 Lecture, Dr. Margaret-Anne Storey 3:00-3:20 ☕ Break 3:20-4:00 🔈 Rob Bennett (VIATEC), Tales of a Technical CEO. |
| 5 | 9 Feb, 2024 | 1:30-2:30 🔈 Perspectives on Entrepreneurship, Steven Myhill-Jones (Chairman and CEO, Daily Journal Corporation) 2:30-3:00 ☕ Break 3:00-4:20 🔈 Time to work on Group Projects and Meet with Course Staff |
| 6 | 16 Feb, 2024 | 1:30-4:20 🚩 Milestone 1 presentation - Proof Of Concept 1:30-1:35 Welcome and Presentations setup 1:35-2:00 👥 MarketMate (Group 6) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:00-2:25 👥 UHub (Group 5) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:25-2:50 👥 PrintLink3d (Group 4) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:50-3:00 ☕ Break 3:00-3:25 👥 NutriDine (Group 3) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 3:25-3:50 👥 RestauWants (Group 2) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 3:50-4:15 👥 ParkEase (Group 1) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback |
| 7 | 23 Feb, 2024 | |
| 8 | 1 Mar, 2024 | 1:30-1:45 Welcome and Panel setup 1:45-3:15 🔈 Panel with Startup founders: Nicole Smith, Founder & CEO Flytographer Juan Orrego, Founder & CEO, Cuboh Eric Jordan, CEO Codename Entertainment 3:15-3:30 ☕ Wrap up the conversation with Panelists + Break 3:30-4:20 👥 Group Work + Open space to talk with Teaching Team |
| 9 | 8 Mar, 2024 | 🚩 Milestone 2 presentation - Release Candidate 1:30-1:35 Welcome and Presentations setup 1:35-2:00 👥 ParkEase (Group 1) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:00-2:25 👥 NutriDine (Group 3) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:25-2:50 👥 RestauWants (Group 2) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:50-3:00 ☕ Break 3:00-3:25 👥 Artisway (Group 6) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 3:25-3:50 👥 PrintLink3d (Group 4) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 3:50-4:15 👥 UHub (Group 5) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback |
| 10 | 15 Mar, 2024 | Founder Story, David Yarish, VP of Mobile Solutions and Co-Founder of Tutela Technologies Founder Story, Nick Addison, Cofounder and CTO, Truss Time to work on projects and meetings with mentors (as needed) |
| 11 | 22 Mar, 2024 | 1:30-2:10 🔈 Intellectual Property, Aislinn Sirk (UVic) 2:10- 3:00 🔈 Innovation Landscape: Jerome Etwaroo (UVic's Coast Capital Innovation Centre) and Rob Bennett (VIATEC) 3:00-3:10 Break 3:10-4:20 👥 Group meetings with Course Staff (and time to work on projects) |
| 12 | 29 Mar, 2024 | |
| 13 | 5 Apr, 2024 | 🚩 Milesone 3 presentation - Public live BETA 1:30-1:35 Welcome and Presentations setup 1:35-2:00 👥 UHub (Group 5) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:00-2:25 👥 PrintLink3d (Group 4) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:25-2:50 👥 NutriDine (Group 3) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:50-3:00 ☕ Break 3:00-3:25 👥 ParkEase (Group 1) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 3:25-3:50 👥 Artisway (Group 6) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 3:50-4:15 👥 RestauWants (Group 2) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 4:15-5:00 Closing and Celebration |
| 12 Apr, 2024 | 🏁 Final submission (submission by GitHub and Brightspace) No Course Meeting |
- Rob Bennett, COO and Program Director, VIATEC
- Sam Mod, CEO and Co-Founder, Freshworks Studio
- Brandon Wright, Founder and CEO, BRNKL
- Humaira Ahmed, Founder and CEO, Best Human (formerly Locelle)
- Claudia Smith, Professor, Guest Course Instructor, School of Business, UVic
- Jerome Etwaroo Director Coast Capital Innovation Center, UVic
- Alessandra Maciel Paz Milani, Course Staff, UVic
- Margaret-Anne Storey, Course Instructor, Professor, Computer Science, UVic
Additional Presenters:
- Nick Addison Cofounder and CTO, Truss
- Eric Jordan, CEO Codename Entertainment
- Steven Myhill-Jones, Entrepreneur/Investor and Founder of Lattitude Geographics, Chairman/CEO Daily Journal Corporation
- Juan Orrego, Co-Founder and CEO, Cuboh
- Aislinn Sirk, Research Partnerships and Innovation Manager, UVic
- Matthew Smith, CEO & Co-Founder at Truss
- Nicole Smith, Founder and CEO, Flytographer
- David Yarish, VP of Mobile Solutions and Co-Founder of Tutela Technologies (now OpenSignal)
Alumni Mentors and Presenters from prior UVic Startup courses:
- Alexey Zagalsky (Founder of the course at UVic and Tel Aviv!)
- Cliff McCollum
- Ian Bull
- Brad van Vugt, Co Founder & CEO, Battlesnake
- Gregory Schier
- Eirini Kalliamvakou
- Arie van Deursen
- Steve Graham, Consulting CTO and Architect
- Sean Falconer, Head of Developer Relations, Skyflow
- Matthew Smith and Nick Addison, Mazumago
| Project Name | Team Members | Tagline | Project Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| ParkEase (Group 1) | Connie; Ashwin; Aarman; Angad; | TBC | https://github.com/armaanchhina/park-ease-fe |
| RestauWants (Group 2) | Rebeca; Cam; Callum; Devin; Norman; Nick; | TBC | https://github.com/restauwants/restauwants |
| NutriDine (Group 3) | Mehrad; Salam; Abraham; John M; | TBC | https://github.com/SENG480a-NutriDine |
| PrintLink3d (Group 4) | James; Dylan; Matt; Joey; Daniel; Jasper; | TBC | https://github.com/J-Raymer/printlink3d |
| UVIC HUB (Group 5) | Bipasa; Levi; Oliver; Rahul; | TBC | https://github.com/lbare/UHub |
| Artisway (Group 6) | Julia; Jon; Jenny; Preet; Maddie; | TBC | https://github.com/MarketMate-Seng480/MarketMate |
Office Hour: By appointment and Thursday 1:00pm-2:30pm ECS 564 (please message on Slack or send email to set an alternative meeting time)
Contact email: startup.programming@gmail.com
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.
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.