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Universitat Internacional de Catalunya

Technology, Innovation & Leadership

Technology, Innovation & Leadership
6
13365
1
First semester
OB
Main language of instruction: English

Teaching staff


Dr. YARDIMCI, Atilla - atilla@uic.es

Lecturer: Prof. Olivier Buigues

Phone: +34 722 35 36 71

E-mail: obuigues@uic.es

Office: Inmaculada, 22. 08017 Barcelona. Spain.

Office hours: By appointment

Introduction

The course is based on learning by doing and places the students with the constraints of entrepreneurs: limited time, limited knowledge and limited resources. Giving a general knowledge of the digital transformation, no-coding and digital marketing tools. Introducing the culture and the methods of digital tools development, in order to prepare them to manage teams of developers and digital projects. Practising problem analysis, entrepreneurial thinking and customer-centricity.

Pre-course requirements

  • Proficiency in English
  • Basic business awareness
  • Fundamentals of marketing
  • Basic Computer knowledge

Objectives

During this course, students will design, build and promote an app (Web Progressive App):

  1. Define a problem that is worth solving through customer interviews.
  2. Design an app’s workflow and the user interactions.
  3. Build a digital marketing automation suite to be able to identify leads, contact them and turn them into customers.
  4. Test, iterate and improve.

Competences/Learning outcomes of the degree programme

  • Identify the mechanisms of Digital Transformation (technology, culture, management)
  • Describe the main concepts and techniques used in digital tools development
  • Make use of User Experience and User Interactions (UX/UI) analysis to deliver a user-friendly app
  • Explore and choose the appropriate tools to reach your objectives and manage a complex project under resource constraint
  • Define your target customers, select the right tools and plug them together to create a complete sales funnel

Syllabus

Session 1       

  • Presentation of the methodology (learning by doing & grading system). Presentation of the problem they will focus on this year.

Session 2       

  • How to spot an opportunity. How to interview possible users / buyers. How to create customer-centered value propositions  
  • Do interviews, download your learnings, decide project

Session 3

  • Project and team management. How to choose and use the right tools for the right task
  • Try and set up tools, decide team goals and ensure individual commitment to them

Session 4

  • Pick your idea: What your customers like, who to copy from, who to compete with.        
  • Create a portfolio and a moodboard. Define your Unique Sales Proposition, choose your branding, logo (Looka.com for inspiration), font (whatthefont), colors (paletton), etc.

Session 5

  • Introduction to low-coding and no-coding development. Discovery and comparison of platforms. Introduction to low-coding and no-coding development. Discovery and comparison of platforms. How to choose and use the right tools for the right task.
  • Try and set up tools, decide team goals and ensure individual commitment to them. Test platforms, choose one, explain why. Choice of no-code platforms: weebly.com, bubble.io, adalo.com, glideapps.com

Session 6

  • User Experience vs User Interface. Material Design vs Bootstrap. Wireframe your app and test it.
  • Branding Identity

Session 7       

  • Front-end vs back-end development.
  • Tips & tricks to build apps that are fast

Session 8       

  • Augmented Reality and VR  
  • Case study - Dogboom

Session 9       

  • Augmented Reality and VR  
  • Case study - Dogboom

Session 10     

  • Customer Onboarding          
  • Coaching on the app

Session 11     

  • Customer acquisition through paying channels.      
  • Best practices in Digital Marketing ads

Session 12

  • Application Workflows
  • Coaching on the app

Session 13     

  • Corporate Branding & User Interface          
  • Each group presents their logo and app to get feedback.

Session 14     

  • Customer acquisition through paying channels.      
  • Best practices in Digital Marketing ads

Session 15     

  • Introduction to GDPR, IP and Copyrighting. Go-to-market strategy and roadmap. Explanation of the sales funnel. Presentation of tools to create an automated sales funnel. Starting at the Top of the Funnel: Outbound.    
  • Scrape the Yellowpages.com to find the emails of 100 prospects. Keep on working on the app. Choose between octoparse.com or import.io. Find at least one other site to harvest in the USA (never in Europe because of GDPR).

Session 16     

  • 1 hour Guest speaker: Giulia Nidasio. Corporate Venturing. User Acquisition and retention at Adevinta

Session 17

  • Lean startup concepts: A/B testing, Do/Measure/Learn, Minimum Viable Product.          
  • Explain where you lost time. Are you on track? What will you focus on for the rest of the module? What do you want to achieve with the MVP?

Session 18

  • Business innovation strategy
  • Guest speaker: Miguel Gonzalez Sancho- European Commission – Directorate General of Communications Networks, Content and Technology. The session will provide a general overview of industrial innovation: from closed to open innovation models; basic innovation concepts and In-class exercise about European innovation funding.

Session 19

  • Go-to-market strategy and roadmap Present your app in a Landing Page + design a marketing strategy

Session 20

  • Technology transfer and innovation ecosystems
  • Guest speaker: Pablo García Tello – CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) - Section Head of the Development of EU Projects & Initiatives. The session will explore how new market opportunities are generated around R&D performed by scientific infrastructures in collaboration with business suppliers and how such opportunities are transformed into commercial products and services. Case of Weizman Institute

Session 21

  • Middle of the Funnel. Programming some automated e-mail sequences. Tips and tricks to write an email with good conversion rates.    
  • Design your drip-email strategy with A/B testing (Choose MailChimp or AutopilotHQ). Finalize your Web Progressive App. Launch the email campaign!!

Session 22     

  • Technology trends: New business models around big data
  • Guest speaker: Yohan Benqué - Head of digital strategy- Business Venture Connected Mobility Marketing and Innovation Director – and Director of Marketing & Innovation - Driving Data to Intelligence at MICHELIN.

Session 23     

  • Learning-by doing and growth mindset. A group look back to the achievements and learnings. What skills did we learn and how might we value them? 
  • Final presentations. Peer & teacher grading.

Session 24

  • Platforms as innovation strategy: the case of DKV
  • Guest speaker: Elena Torrente - Digital Heath Development Deputy Director at DKV

Session 25     

  • Technology trends: AI-driven digital transformation            
  • Guest speaker: Ana García – Secretary General of the European Big Data Value Association

Session 26     

  • Challenges of corporate innovation  
  • Dávila A. (2019) Challenges of corporate innovation–IESE case

Session 27     

  • Culture of Innovation and conclusions         
  • Case: Castelltort, a., Dávila, a. (2018). Driving Innovation Through Intrapreneurship at Chiesi. IESE, E-193-E.

Evaluation systems and criteria

In person



  • Participation: 32%
  • Assignments:28%
  • Presentation: 28%
  • Peer: 12%

Bibliography and resources

  • Lean Startup: https://leanstartup.co/education/
  • Design thinking: https://www.ibm.com/design/thinking/page/toolkit
  • https://www-356.ibm.com/partnerworld/wps/static/watsonbuild/media/IBM%20Design%20Thinking%20Field%20Guide%20Watson%20Build%20v3.5_ac.pdf
  • Logo design: https://looka.com/
  • No-coding solution basic: https://www.weebly.com/?lang=en
  • No-coding solution Good: https://www.adalo.com/
  • No-coding solution Good: https://airtable.com/
  • No-coding solution Advanced: https://forum.bubble.io/
  • CRM: https://www.hubspot.com/resources
  • Marketing Automation: https://www.autopilothq.com/
  • Parsing and scrapping: https://www.octoparse.com/
  • Profile enhancement: https://hunter.io/
  • Growth Hacking: https://phantombuster.com/
  • Social media management: https://hootsuite.com/