Education without Boundaries

Jan 2018

Course GE 480 - Entrepreneurship

Course Objective: Develop a business plan for a global venture

Students: From Dubai, Shanghai, Singapore, Vellore and San Jose

Online tools to be used: Various

Virtual Platform: SecondLife

My first assessment involving students from locations all over the world! Finally for me academia was catching up with the real world. Students from more than one location, collaborating to create a business plan for a global venture. A first one for me! This assessment would offer students the experience of working with members from different cultures, work ethics and expectations. Of course they would work in different time zones as well!

To manage this project successfully students would be required to brainstorm over virtual media, manage collaborative efforts and documents, conduct market research for different markets, develop products and services to that would meet requirements of customers from all over the world. Not an easy task. I have conceived that students would use various digital tools like the online video conferencing facilities for conducting meetings, micro-blogging tools for market research, online project management tools to track the progress of their project and document management sites for collaboration. Reviewing the profiles of students enrolled in my course I could see that they could do this in a heartbeat. What I am really excited and anxious is about simulating the business in a virtual world.

In SecondLife, students could set up their business, make and sell their products, test responses from customers, train their employees on product features, experiment with look and feel of stores, test their marketing strategies. The list is endless. A whole digital platform to enact the business plan before going out into the real world. What a hype could be created. Users in the virtual world would learn about the business model and feedback into the real world!

How would this work out? Would students take to the idea? What would my role be? Would they get so cocooned in a virtual world that they would be unable to cope with the harsh realities of the real world? How would they deal with criticisms from strangers in a virtual world. I have no answers because this is uncharted territory for me. But hey, what is an entrepreneurship course without a few risks? I am good to go..