Stanfordská univerzita na jaře spustila první online kurz pro podnikatele, který byl zcela zdarma pro zájemce z celého světa. Neváhal jsem a přihlásil se také, podobně jako 40 tis. (!) dalších. Jarní kurz provázel trošku chaos, což bylo dáno zejména obrovským zájmem účastníků. Ale Stanfordu evidentně není vzdálená myšlenka Lean Startup a tak vše průběžně vylepšovali a ve výsledku to dopadlo dobře. Vzniklo z toho 160 týmů, z toho část bude zcela jistě pokračovat komerčně. Účast tedy vyžadovala sestavení týmu a práci min. několik hodin týdně, které jsem nakonec nenašel. A tak mne nakonec po pár upozorněních a nesplněných deadlinech vyhodili. Takže to že to je online kurz neznamená, že to budete moci flákat 🙂

A když budete pilní, získáte po absolvování certifikát. Ten můžete na svého šéfa vytáhnout aby vám přidal – ale to jen proto, abyste si našetřili trochu víc peněz před tím, než se pustíte do vlastního podnikání 🙂

Celková nabídka online kurzů se nyní rozšířila na 16, z toho rovnou pět je podnikatelských, viz níže.

Pokud jarní kurz někdo z vás dostudoval (vím, že čechů tam bylo několik), prosím podělte se o své zkušenosti v komentářích.

Dear students,

I am very proud to announce 5 new Stanford classes to be offered on Venture Lab this Fall. Here is the list:

Technology Entrepreneurship

Introduces the fundamentals of technology entrepreneurship, pioneered in Silicon Valley and now spreading across the world. You will learn the process technology entrepreneurs use to start companies. It involves taking a technology idea and finding a high-potential commercial opportunity, gathering resources such as talent and capital, figuring out how to sell and market the idea, and managing rapid growth. To gain practical experience alongside the theory, students form teams and work on startup projects in those teams.

Advanced Entrepreneurship – Start up Boards

Designed for teams who have already started a company or are seriously thinking about starting a company. We encourage teams to take this class together as much of the work will be focused on working with your board to make real progress on the most issues in your startup. For each startup team, we will create a board comprised of your peers based on your needs, their skills, and everyone’s engagement. In addition, one of the early assignments will be for each team to find one or two domain experts to serve on their board for the duration of the class.

A Crash Course on Creativity

Designed to explore several factors that stimulate and inhibit creativity in individuals, teams, and organizations. In each session we will focus on a different variable related to creativity, such as framing problems, challenging assumptions, and creative teams. The course is highly experiential, requiring each student to participate actively, taking on weekly projects. Each Monday a new challenge will be presented, and the results are due the following Friday. Some of the challenges will be completed individually, and some will be done in teams. There will be a two-week project toward the end of the course that will allow you to use all the tools you have learned.

Designing a New Learning Environment

What constitutes learning in the 21st century? Should education be based on delivering contents and getting students to memorize facts? Should reading, watching, and taking exams be part of all learning? Should there be more interactive, collaborative, and constructive learning activities integrating mobile and social networking tools of today? Should new training and learning activities be more fun and game-like? In this course, we discuss and answer these questions. This is a project based course and the ultimate goal is to promote systematic design thinking and cause a paradigm shift in learning environments today and tomorrow. Participants are not required to have computer programming skills, but must be motivated to help people learn better and commitment to succeed in team projects in the course.

Finance

We live in an uncertain world. Every day, we need to make decisions about alternatives whose consequences cannot be predicted with certainty. You need to commit resources (time, money, effort, etc.) in the face of uncertainty about the future. This course develops concepts and tools to address these types of situations. The focus is on basic principles and how the concepts are applied in practice. No prior knowledge of finance required. While a basic preparation in mathematics (probability, statistics, and optimization) is desirable, all required concepts and tools are developed in the course. This is a 10 week course. Each week there will be a 20-30 minute lecture. At the end of each lecture there will be an individual challenge. There will also be two projects that involve real financial data. Solutions will be posted online and evaluated by fellow participants.
We look forward to seeing you in the next classes. Meanwhile, please spread the word to your colleagues and friends and on social networks.

Best wishes,
Amin Saberi

PS. Until we migrate your information to the new site, you can access the data from Spring’s class on spr2012.venture-lab.org.