Syllabus

In H2 of the Fall Semester you will prepare by studying a set of common challenges facing global startups and teams that work with them. At the end of your internship, you will deliver a report to the company. In H1 of the Spring Semester we will discuss your experiences and talk in more detail with some of the companies. Your final deliverable is a report that reflects on what you have learned and makes further suggestions for the company. You will need to demonstrate your detailed understanding of the company and its business.

Course Requirements

1. Regular class attendance in both H2 Fall and H1 Spring. Participation in class and small-group interactions will account for 25 percent of the grade. We will cold call students throughout every session. There will be a seating chart and students are requested to occupy the same seat in all sessions. Attendance at every class is expected. Please talk to us if you need to miss a class. We are willing to consider any reasonable explanation for why you can't attend class, but each unexplained absence reduces your grade by 5 percent. Missing 3 classes constitutes an automatic failure of the course.
   
   
2. You need to build a team with diverse and complementary skills. This is the key to success in your internship. Think carefully about the people you want to work with and how you will allocate responsibilities within your team. We will help you as much as possible, but ultimately team selection and operation is your responsibility. This activity is not graded directly, but it will have a major effect on your performance throughout the course. By Lecture 5 you need to submit a detailed project plan for your work with the company. We will give you feedback on this plan, but it will not count towards your grade.
   
   Very Important: There will also be an intra-team evaluation at the end H1 Spring (i.e., you get to say who did the work).
   
   
3. Internship with the Company. We will help you find the company and define the project in general terms. One TA and one faculty member will work with each group to help on all aspects. However, you are ultimately responsible for negotiating all the details. Your diligence in dealing with the company, including all aspects of follow-up with them counts for 20 percent of the grade. Our evaluation will be based on our conversations with your group, the TA who helps your group and the company managers you work with.
   
   
4. Deliverable to the company. The goal of each internship is to produce written material (e.g., recommendations/advice) that is immediately useful to the company; this will count for 15 percent of the grade. You are responsible for negotiating a deliverable that is as useful as possible to the company. Our expectation is that the January internship will take place outside the US. We have reached a general agreement with the start-ups as to the terms and conditions of the internship, but you are responsible for negotiating all the details with the company.
   
   
5. Class Discussion. Most of the H1 Spring classes will be structured around the companies you have worked with, possibly including a live interaction with the CEO (by phone or in person.) The presentation and discussion of this report will count for 10 percent. Specifically, you need to do the following:
   
   a) One day before the first class in H1 Spring, all teams should provide the TAs with the set of PowerPoint slides that you would use to make your presentation to the class. 
   
   b) All teams will present either to the full class or just to the faculty. Given time limitations we will not be able to discuss all cases in class, so we will select those most useful for overall learning.
   
   c) Each presentation should include the following: (i) the nature of the company and its current issues, (ii) how the team was able to help, (iii) what are the important open issues remaining for the company, and (iv) what team members themselves learned from this experience. Each presentation should take about 15-20 minutes, allowing 10-15 minutes for question and answer.
   
   
6. Final Report. The written final report is due at the start of the last class of H1 Spring. The final written product will count for 30 percent of the grade. This report should focus on showing that you understand thoroughly the company and its value proposition. In addition, you should integrate material relevant to the four goals of G-Lab, as outlined on page one of this syllabus. For example, what specific issues does the company face because of where it is located? How exactly did you add value? How exactly have you added to your network of contacts? You should also provide reasonable forecasts for the future of the company, given your projections of the relevant macroeconomic and microeconomic environment. The final report should be 20 double-spaced pages of text, plus any tables and appendices that help the reader. Note that in previous years, outstanding teams have prepared their final report in a form that can be used effectively as a teaching case in MBA classes. We encourage this approach but do not require it. However, we may ask some teams to talk with other classes at Sloan, e.g., in H2 spring.

Course Credit

Global E-Lab is a 12-credit course. You earn 6 credits in the fall and 6 credits in the spring. You should factor this into your overall fall and spring credit limits that apply to your program. (i.e., Sloan MBAs taking Global E-Lab can take at most 54 credits-worth of additional courses in the fall and spring semesters.) You cannot allocate these credits in any other way and you cannot allocate any of these credits to IAP.

You will receive a "T" grade at the end of the Fall semester for the course. This is a continuation grade that appears for MIT administrative purposes. A final grade will be applied at the end of the Spring semester when you have completed all work. You must complete all the work in the fall, IAP and the spring to receive credit. Partial credit is not given. Registration for the spring semester will be done automatically. You need not re-bid for the course.

Other Important Points

1. The course website should be monitored closely. This web site has important information about the course as well as about the companies.
   
   
2. Information about the companies will be posted on the website. Each company will have one TA and one faculty member assigned to it. If you have further questions for the company (until the final matching of teams and companies is complete), please ask the appropriate TA to ask the company. This is to avoid too many different groups contacting the companies.
   
   
3. Each group will work with a specific faculty member as well as by one of the TAs, whose job it is to make sure that the group functions normally. Faculty will meet with each group on a regular basis during H2 Fall.
   
4. To facilitate team building and to enable the companies to get to know you, please post your resumes on the course website. It is very important that you register on this website as soon as possible, in order to see information about companies and other students.
   
   
5. Overheads and handouts will be posted on the course website. Please check this regularly and particularly before each class. All the materials for each class should be posted the evening before class; but please check for late breaking items posted before noon on the day of class.
   
   
6. During the course we will assign topical newspaper articles dealing with current events. If there are particular issues or newspaper stories you wish to discuss, please let us know.

IAP runs for 4 weeks during January. Your internship should last between 3-4 weeks. The whole team should arrive at and leave the company together.

VERY IMPORTANT. Written deliverable is due to the company one week (7 days) after finishing your internship. Your slides for potential in-class presentation are due one week after finishing your internship.

The primary goal of the in-class sessions is to enable you to reflect on what you have learned from the internship, personally and professionally. Each group is expected to make a brief presentation of what it has learned at some point during H1, with a particular focus on understanding the company and its value proposition. A detailed schedule of the Spring H1 Sessions will be distributed at the beginning of Spring Term.