Before there was Google, there was Inktomi (the first widely adopted search engine – also a Berkeley company). Why did it fail and Google succeed? Same for Myspace and Facebook?  Was it technology, marketing, people, luck, execution, or something else? It is trivial to discern good ideas and profound technological shifts after the fact. But how could you become your own futurist and learn to analyze emerging trends and foretell the outcome? We will study and analyze both failures and successes in artificial intelligence and healthtech. Students will learn about netnographic research, interview innovators to be published in a podcast series, and then form teams to write a book to identify patterns that they could later apply to their own research, career decisions, or entrepreneurial ventures.AI and Healthcare Startups: How to win (and how to lose)
The format of the class will include lectures, guest speakers from distinguished entrepreneurs and innovators, peer-reviewed presentations, quantitative and qualitative data gathering, and group exercises. We will also take a critical look at AI and groups will create a pitch deck with a focus on AI for social impact enterprise.