Entrepreneurship for Computer Scientists: From Startup Idea to Working Prototype

This seminar guides participants towards the creation of a concrete IT startup project. It combines the Innosuisse / Venturelab Business Concept Fribourg training — eleven evening sessions taught by seasoned entrepreneurs, with individual coaching on each participant’s project — with a mandatory software engineering component: every JMCS participant (or team) must design, implement and demonstrate a working prototype of the product behind their business idea.

The premise is that a business concept for a software product only becomes credible once something runs. The customer-discovery work done in the Venturelab modules constrains what the prototype must do; what the prototype turns out to cost in engineering effort feeds back into the business model, such that the two sides inform each other.

Participants may bring their own project or join a team formed during the first sessions. JMCS students have to apply by September 15 (special JMCS deadline) to VentureLab using this form. Specify in the comments that you are taking the JMCS seminar and motivate your application fully (it is a competitive programme and Venturelab only selects the most promising candidates).

Contents

Part A — Venturelab Business Concept Fribourg (11 sessions)

Delivered by Venturelab trainers, all of them experienced entrepreneurs, with individual coaching on each participant’s project. Sessions are interactive: short input blocks, work on your own project, peer feedback. The program will kick off with a Bootcamp Day on 25.09.2026 (9am to 4pm at Unlimited Campus Prilly) and will be followed by weekly session on Tuesdays (5pm to 9pm at BlueFactory Fribourg). More information is available here.

Part B — Software design, implementation and demo (mandatory)

This is the part specific to the JMCS seminar, and the reason it carries 5 ECTS. It runs in parallel with Part A, on the participants’ own time, with two supervised checkpoints and a demo in February 2027.

Details

Code 03694
Type Seminar
ECTS 5
Site Fribourg
Track(s) T0 – General
Semester A2026

Teaching

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the seminar, participants are able to:

  • Translate a technology or research insight into an articulated value proposition, and validate or invalidate it against real potential customers.
  • Analyse a market and a competitive landscape, and derive a defensible business model from that analysis.
  • Scope an ambitious product idea down to a prototype buildable by a small team in one semester, and justify what was deliberately left out.
  • Produce a software design document — architecture, data model, technology choices, external dependencies, risks — and defend it in a design review.
  • Implement a working end-to-end vertical slice of that design Demonstrate a running system live to a non-technical audience, and explain honestly what is real, what is stubbed, and what would be required to make it production-grade.
Lecturer(s) Philippe Cudré-Mauroux
Language english
Course Page

The course page in ILIAS can be found at https://ilias.unibe.ch/go/crs/3789448.

Schedules and Rooms

Period On Appointment

Evaluation

Evaluation type continuous evaluation

Additional information

Comment

First Lecture
The first lecture will be announced later.