DBIS

Introduction

The lab course “High-Tech Entrepreneurship and New Media” covers special chapters for the development of complex information products. New design and implementation approaches, those who are asserting themselves as standards as well as group-oriented and participative approaches like agile development are also to be introduced to deliver software engineering knowledge in a very detailed manner. The lab course builds on existing lectures such as Information Systems and Databases, Software Engineering, Social Computing, CSCW and Project Management.

Guest lectures are open to all master students; the Entrepreneurship Lab is offered for a maximum class size of 18 students. The lab course is combined with a series of lectures from an entrepreneurial perspective. During the lecture, the students participating in the lab will obtain support for their work on tasks in the lab. There will be a developer camp in the beginning, including two all-day lectures facilitating computer science based knowledge on methods. Integrated into the concept of this course is the procurement of necessary facts for start ups in high-tech branches, taught by practitioners. Four reviews will be used to present the results of the lab and for discussions.

To support the participants in the development of presentation skills, we will organize and perform a combined training and coaching program. A half-day presentation training is aimed at providing and practicing basic knowledge on the preparation and realization of business presentations. In three coaching sessions, the participants will be given detailed video-based feedback on their review presentations to improve specific aspects of their presentation behaviour. The students will work in start-ups on specific and typical IT-related problems of these enterprises. Therefore, the students will get the right qualification in tutorials during the first part of the semester. During the whole semester, they also have the L2P at their disposal, in order to interchange problem solving information among themselves and their tutors and to extend their knowledge. In the first review, a requirements engineering study is to be presented through agile development methods as well as a project concept. In the second review, the students shall describe and present a running prototype of their concept either as a interface design study or as core functionality. In the third review we like to see a integrated full functional prototype. In the last review focus is on a customer oriented presentation of a product. The enterprise, the problem and the solution concept as well as the problem solving process will be introduced and presented in a public presentation at the end of the course, which will be held in the Digital Church in cooperation with the digitalHUB Aachen. Details can be found in our detailed schedule of the lab and the lecture series in L2P.

Components of the lab course

• Lectures by entrepreneurial stakeholders (founders, investors, etc.)
• Agile Developer Camp with two day tutorial
• Four reviews of joint project work together with start-up companies
• Video-based feedback of presentations
• Reflection workshops on group work and project management

Learning goals

• Application of project management in software engineering projects
• Group work
• Development of presentation skills
• Acquiring real-world software engineering knowledge from high-tech companies
• Acquiring entrepreneurial knowledge