I am teaching a course new to me this term. The course is an entry level, 2nd year course on entrepreneurship, and the first in our suite of entrepreneurship courses for our Sprott School of Business B. Comm concentration in Entrepreneurship and minor in Entrepreneurship. This course is open to all, therefore students in the class are exposed to a great variety of educational programs, backgrounds and experiences.
I have decided to pilot a new initiative in this course this term. Teams of four students launch a real online business, supported by Online Venture Challenge, an online gamified learning platform partnered with Shopify and developed by Prof. Geoff Archer from Royal Roads University in Victoria, BC, Canada.
This is a unique experiential approach: each team selects a charity organization to give their profits to. Teams brainstorm potential business ideas for products or services and launch their online stores on Shopify. There is a competition among teams as well as a pitching event. At the end of the term, profits will go to the selected charity organizations.
At Sprott School of Business, we believe that students learn best about entrepreneurship by doing entrepreneurship… As such, they will learn valuable marketable skills such as ideation, feasibility assessment, business models, minimal viable products, social media tools and an integrated communication strategy, team work, role of a CFO and much more.
I will update on the progress!
Diane A. Isabelle 