Advanced workshop to integrate professional skills - 2017

Advanced Lean Canvas & Entrepreneurship

Date and time: July 22, 2017, 9:00-5:00

Location: QNC 1201, Mike & Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre, University of Waterloo

Please contact Chin Lee to register. The registration deadline is June 10, 2017.


Instructors:

- Doug Beynon

- Rachel Bartholomew

Abstract:

Entrepreneurs and researchers contemplate a series of untested hypotheses; the business model canvas summarizes these hypotheses and creates a diagram on how an individual or company can create value for themselves and for their customers. Through the Lean Launchpad approach, students are able to identify and validate problems to arrive at executable research or a commercialization solution.

An entrepreneur talks with customers to iterate product development, determines the pivots necessary for the business to succeed and secures the required resources for the commercialized product to go to market. This may be accomplished through licensing the technology and/or by establishing a business. The approach can be applied to a researcher in their process of identifying a problem, conducting primary and secondary research to arrive upon a conclusion that ultimately becomes a product for an academic publication.

By the end of the workshop, students will be able to identify and apply core concepts in entrepreneurship to a new venture or to their academic research. By going through the customer development process, students will validate and iterate their ideas. Students should be able to generate their own (from past projects and/or research) lean canvas and effectively present their idea or research in a 3-minute pitch. They will also be able to effectively present and articulate their business idea or research project clearly.

Intended Learning Outcomes:

  • Assemble a pitch and be able to effectively present and articulate their business idea or research project clearly
  • Use the concepts developed in the Commercialization and Entrepreneurship workshop to lay out a lean canvas on their own idea based on the Intellectual Property developed
  • Use the presentation skills taught in the Commercialization and Entrepreneurship workshop to judge a handful of companies on their presentations as well as present their own idea