This is an in-class, hackathon whereby students tackle business challenges with the help of their newfound prototyping skills.

Dates and Times:

  • Spring 2020 – TBD
  • Fall 2019
    • FTMBA 290T – Thursday – 9/26/2019 – 8:35-11am – Haas Innovation Lab – Berkeley, CA (CHALLENGES)

Typical Schedule:

  1. ONE-DAY PROTOTYPATHON (FT/EWMBA 290T)
    1. First 10 minutes – present business challenges & required prototyping ingredients, answer questions.
    2. Remaining time (~2.5 hours) – students work building their own prototypes that ask key questions about the market opportunities within the chosen challenge
      1. Students can work together (talk via Slack / share prototyping feedback, etc.), but EVERYONE submits their own prototype and Prototype-Now submission.
    3. Last 30 minutes – volunteer report outs
      1. Quick 2 minute show & tell session for 4x volunteers
      2. One volunteer for each challenge topic area
    4. Post PROTOTYPATHON Celebration – based on popular vote, we’ll either head to the Think Cafe in Haas or to another spot nearby to celebrate with snacks and beverages. First round on the Teaching Team.
      1. Considering COVID19, we will stay “on-line” until 10pm and will celebrate everyone’s success virtually.
  2. TWO-DAY PROTOTYPATHON (UGBA 190T)
    1. Day 1
      1. First 10 minutes – present business challenges & required prototyping ingredients
      2. Remaining time – students work independently building their own prototypes that ask key questions about the market opportunities within the chosen challenge
      3. Last 5 minutes – Q&A and recap of what will happen between now and the next session
    2. Day 2
      1. Five minutes of hands on
      2. Student presentations:
        1. Formatting Suggestions:
          1. The teaching team cares most about your target user feedback. So it behooves you to show you exposed your prototype(s) to your target stakeholders.
          2. We also understand that this is a challenging assignment. Remember, we were all mainly under the same duress and prototyping constraints.
        2. Example Format:
          1. Quick < 1 min overview of challenge chosen and prototyped solution(s)
          2. Detailed photos / screenshots of actual prototype created…highlighting your use of the required prototyping ingredients
          3. Qualitative and quantitative data on the feedback from your target audience / stakeholders.
          4. The insights you believe you extracted from this experience, a high-level calculation of your RoE
          5. Any final takeaways / next steps for you and your newfound prototyping skills
        3. Where to submit your presentation:
          1. Please submit on Bcourses on the last-day’s Class Participation, Attendance and PROTOTYPATHON slides submission area.
      3. Remaining time (if any) – next steps in your prototyping journey, start celebrating early
      4. [postponed for another day due to Coronavirus AND the fact that my next class starts at 6:10pm] Post PROTOTYPATHON Celebration – based on popular vote, we’ll either head to the Think Cafe in Haas or to another spot nearby to celebrate with snacks and beverages. First round on the Teaching Team.

Alumni and “Target Stakeholders”

We’d be absolutely THRILLED if you folks chime into our two RIC Workspace Channels that are related to the PROTOTYPATHON:

  • #prototypathon
  • #unforgiving-marketplace

Our students will be posting their projects in those channels and will be attempting to get quick feedback on their solutions. Be candid, be constructive, help them do great prototyping!

Guests and Visitors:

We love having guests, visitors and prototyping enthusiasts. If you’ve been invited by a member of the Teaching Team or a current student, please come to the Innovation Lab (or Zoom) at your leisure. The PROTOTYPATHON Show & Tell typically happens the last 30 minutes of the PROTOTYPATHON so if you’re optimizing for time, that’s when students get to share what they’ve built in 2 hours.

If you have any questions whatsoever, contact the Teaching Team.