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 comprised of business and computer science 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 see Brightspace for a more detailed and up to date version of the schedule with links to slides.
Please note this is a tentative schedule. The slides and other materials will be available in the resources section.
| Date | Meeting agenda | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6 Sept, 2024 | 1:30-2:50 🔈 Introduction to the course and incoming ideas 2:50-3:35 🔈 Ideation and Opportunity Recognition 3:35-4:20 🔈Paradigms and Team Effectiveness |
| 2 | 13 Sept, 2024 | 1:30-2:50 🔈 Creativity for Ideations 2:20-4:20 👥 Trial balloons, ideas, and team storming & forming |
| 3 | 20 Sept, 2024 | 1:30-2:00 🔈 Mentor Introductions 2:00-3:30 🚩Assignment 1 - Project proposal presentations (See Brightspace for the requirements) 3:30 -4:20 🔈 Value Proposition Canvas Workshop |
| 4 | 27 Sept, 2024 | 1:30-2:15 🔈 Continue on Value Proposition Canvas Workshop + Customer Discovery and Segmentation 2:15-3:00 🔈 Guest Speaker: Aislinn Sirk, Intellectual Property Now and in the Future 3:00-4:20 🔈 Guest Speakers: Garry Van Soest, Serial Founder & Maxwell Nicholson – Founder of Blossom Social |
| 5 | 4 Oct, 2024 | 1:30-2:30 🔈 MVP, UX and Prototyping 2:30-3:15 🔈 Project Management and Workflow Basics 3:15-4:15 👥 Workshop for teams to develop project management draft plan in parallel to Coaching Clinic to Prepare for Milestone 1 |
| 6 | 11 Oct, 2024 | 🚩 Assignment 2: Milestone 1 presentation - Proof Of Concept (see Brightspace for the requirements) 1:30-1:35 Welcome and Presentations setup 1:35-2:00 👥 nurtuRe (Group 6) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:00-2:25 👥 Spot On (Group 5) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:25-2:50 👥 StreetSense (Group 4) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:50-3:00 ☕ Break 3:00-3:25 👥 CrowdShip (Group 3) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 3:25-3:50 👥 Build Stats (Group 2) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 3:50-4:15 👥 Allergy Aware (Group 1) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 4:15-4:20 Closing |
| 7 | 18 Oct, 2024 | 1:30-2:35 🔈 Business Model Canvas 2:35-2:50 🔈 Course assignment's review and clarifications 2:50-3:00 ☕ Break 3:00-4:20 🔈 Guest speaker: Don Mattrick |
| 8 | 25 Oct, 2024 | 1:30-2:10 🔈 How to create effective product concepts 2:10-2:30 🔈The Mom Test and other customer discovery tools 2:30-3:30 🔈 Guest Speaker: Jack Campbell 3:30-3:40 ☕ Break 3:40-4:20 👥 Coaching clinic to get ready for Milestone 2 (Assignment 3) |
| 9 | 1 Nov, 2024 | 🚩 Assignment 3: Milestone 2 presentation - Release Candidate (see Brightspace for the requirements) 1:30-1:35 Welcome and Presentations setup 1:35-2:00 👥 CrowdShip (Group 3) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:00-2:25 👥 Allergy Aware (Group 1) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:25-2:50 👥 SiteReady (Group 2) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:50-3:00 ☕ Break 3:00-3:25 👥 EasyPath (Group 6) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 3:25-3:50 👥 StreetSense (Group 4) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 3:50-4:15 👥 Spot On (Group 5) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 4:15-4:20 Closing |
| 10 | 8 Nov, 2024 | 1:30-3:00 🔈 What Role can AI Play Now and in the Future 3:00-4:20 🔈 Founder guest speaker panel – Juan Orrego, founder of Cuboh; Nicole Smith, founder of Flytographer |
| 11 | 15 Nov, 2024 | TBD based on course feedback |
| 12 | 22 Nov, 2024 | 1:30-2:10 🔈 Where to from here? What happens after the course is over? Resources, IP, funding, legal issues 2:10-3:10 🔈 Guest speakers – seasoned founders share their insights 3:10-3:40 👥 15 minutes per team with one of the mentors to work on one sticky problem as you prepare for Milestone 3 3:40-4:20 👥 Coaching clinic with the instructors in preparation for Milestone 3 |
| 13 | 29 Nov, 2024 | 🚩 Assignment 4: Milesone 3 presentation - Public live BETA (see Brightspace for the requirements) 1:30-1:35 Welcome and Presentations setup 1:35-2:00 👥 SiteReady (Group 2) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:00-2:25 👥 StreetSense (Group 4) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:25-2:50 👥 EasyPath (Group 6) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 2:50-3:00 ☕ Break 3:00-3:25 👥 Spot On (Group 5) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 3:25-3:50 👥 Allergy Aware (Group 1) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 3:50-4:15 👥 CrowdShip (Group 3) + Q&A and Mentors' Feedback 4:15-4:45 Closing and Celebration (🎊🍕) |
| 14 | 6 Dec, 2024 | 🏁 Assignment 5: Final submission (see Brightspace for the requirements) No Course Meeting |
- Rob Bennett, COO and Program Director, VIATEC
- Brandon Wright, Founder and CEO, BRNKL
- Jerome Etwaroo Director Coast Capital Innovation Center, UVic
- Annabel Youens, Founder of FairShare and Appreciation Engine
- Claudia Smith, Professor, Course Instructor, School of Business, UVic
- Margaret-Anne Storey, Course Instructor, Professor, Computer Science, UVic
- Alessandra Maciel Paz Milani, Course Staff, UVic
- Scarlett Koster, Course Staff, UVic
Additional Presenters:
- Steven Myhill-Jones, Entrepreneur/Investor and Founder of Lattitude Geographics, Chairman/CEO Daily Journal Corporation
- Juan Orrego, Co-Founder & CEO, Cuboh
- Aislinn Sirk, Research Partnerships and Innovation Manager, UVic
- Nicole Smith, Founder & CEO, Flytographer
- Garry Van Soest, Serial Founder
- Maxwell Nicholson, Founder of Blossom Social
- Don Mattrick, CEO, Prometheus Ventures Inc (previous President at EA, Microsoft, Zynga)
- Jack Campbell, Co-Founder & CEO, RentSimple
- More to be added
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
- Sam Mod, CEO & Co-Founder, Freshworks Studio
- Eric Jordan, CEO Codename Entertainment
- David Yarish, VP of Mobile Solutions and Co-Founder of Tutela Technologies (now OpenSignal)
- Matthew Smith, CEO & Co-Founder at Truss
- Nick Addison Co-Founder & CTO, Truss
- Humaira Ahmed, Founder & CEO, Best Human (formerly Locelle)
| Project Name | Team Members | Tagline | Project Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Allergy Aware (Group 1) | Alyvia; Joshua, Nathan; Salma (ex Noah; Reid) | TBD | GitHub Link |
| SiteReady (Group 2) | Brendan; Jackson; Kyle; Nolan | TBD | GitHub Link |
| CrowdShip (Group 3) | Aman; Ethan; Isabella; Neeraj; Omar; Stella | TBD | GitHub Link |
| StreetSense (Group 4) | Emila; Jack; Nikolas; Rena; William (ex Callum) | TBD | GitHub Link |
| Spot On (Group 5) | Aaron; Adam; Alyssa; Ethan; Luiz; Paul | TBD | GitHub Link |
| EasyPath (nurtuRe) (Group 6) | Harry; Hoksolinvan; Karn; Sam; Umit | TBD | GitHub Link |
Office Hour: By appointment and before or after class. 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.