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MIT Entrepreneurship Bootcamp Demo Day a resounding success
The University of Regensburg continues its strategic development of broadening its international impact and strengthening its ties with world-leading academic institutions. The Faculty of Informatics and Data Science has been playing a key role here. In October we will see the first cohorts starting three new international Masters, the MSc in Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence, the MSc in Computer Science and the MSc in Data Science.
Another highlight on this journey has been the MIT entrepreneurship bootcamp that has just concluded. This six-week intensive course is based on a longstanding bilateral agreement between the University and MIT via MIT International Science & Technology Initiatives (MISTI) Germany. Just for context, MIT has just been ranked the world’s number 1 university for the 14th consecutive year by the prestigious QS Rankings.
MIT entrepreneurship bootcamp
This was the third time this module was run since the covid break and it was the biggest yet with about 20 students at Bachelor as well as Master level from computer science, data science, information science and beyond taking up the challenge of learning how to progress from a vague business idea to actually getting a startup off the ground. The course structure broadly follows the 24 steps of “Disciplined Entrepreneurship”, a standard text book by MIT Professor Bill Aulet. Tracy Lahey and Lizzy Salata who both just successfully concluded their MBA at MIT flew in from Boston to lead this exciting programme. The way they approached teaching the material included continuous active involvement by the students who reported back frequently on their progress. A broad sampling of weekly guest speakers representing a wide spectrum of stakeholders, involving early startups as well as multinational enterprises, contributed to the experience. For example, Eliza Weaver came over from Milan to talk about her her current funding pursuits for her pre-seed startup Tribe Running; Andrea Stich (Infineon) pitched her presentation very differently answering plenty of questions on the background of the company and the vision ahead. Tracy and Lizzy even managed to organise a field trip to Munich with stops at SAP, Tacto and Anybill — three very different but equally exciting companies.
Start-up ideas presented on Demo Day
The ultimate highlight was Demo Day, says Professor Udo Kruschwitz, the University lead of the programme: “It is truly amazing what can be achieved by a team of 3 or 4 of our students within the time frame of this programme. Most of them come in with no clear idea of what they have signed up for. Six weeks later they confidently present a clear roadmap to a startup which includes a compelling motivation, a thorough analysis of the market and clearly laid out next steps on the journey.” Startup ideas presented at this year’s Demo Day ranged from addressing digital addiction (SNAP) to certification and competency-building platforms for professional development (MED ED+ and SkillBridge) and an app-based approach of bringing alive history at world historical sites (HistoryLens) to a matchmaking app for casual sports (Swishh) clearly inspired by Eliza Weaver’s talk. Some of the responses picked up from Lizzy and Tracy included 'Great job considering qualitative and quantitative aspects of value to your customer', 'your market sizing is rigorous and well done', 'it's clear that you really understand your persona and have done deep discovery, well done'. Who knows, the next University of Regensburg-based startup might be just around the corner.
Prof. Dr. Udo Kruschwitz
Chair of Information Science
University of Regensburg
Email: Udo.Kruschwitz@ur.de
Left to right: Tracy Lahey, Udo Kruschwitz and Lizzy Salata
Quelle: Bastian Schmidt
Copyright: UR / Bastian Schmidt
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