BUSN13003 - Pitching and Funding of Innovations

General Information

Unit Synopsis

What makes a great TED talk or a great crowdfunding campaign and how do you write a winning grant application? How do you sell an innovation to investors who are worried about market resistance to new ideas? How do you sell an “idea” to an audience, if ‘all’ you want them to invest is enthusiasm and time rather than money? These are some of the questions that entrepreneurs and innovators face in doing their work, and this unit will take you into the ‘art’ and ‘science’ of pitching, including how to craft a message that takes into account resistance, using all the senses to gain maximum engagement, and using social media not just to get the message out, but to improve the message. Pitching and grant writing are key skills of the innovator and the entrepreneur. You will also be introduced to current thinking on crowdfunding and crowd-sourcing, drawing on the social psychology of persuasion, as well as marketing science, to hone messages that elicit action.

Details

Level Undergraduate
Unit Level 3
Credit Points 6
Student Contribution Band SCA Band 4
Fraction of Full-Time Student Load 0.125
Pre-requisites or Co-requisites

Students will be required to have completed 8 units (48cp) prior to studying this unit.

Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework).

Class Timetable View Unit Timetable
Residential School No Residential School

Unit Availabilities from Term 3 - 2024

There are no availabilities for this unit on or after Term 3 - 2024

Attendance Requirements

All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).

Assessment Overview

Recommended Student Time Commitment

Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.

Assessment Tasks

Assessment Task Weighting
1. Practical Assessment 50%
2. Presentation 50%

This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).

Consult the University's Grades and Results Policy for more details of interim results and final grades

Past Exams

To view Past Exams,
please login
Previous Feedback

Term 1 - 2021 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 100.00% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 50% response rate.

Feedback, Recommendations and Responses

Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.

Source: Student feedback, lecturer reflection.
Feedback
Introduce new case study examples.
Recommendation
Build on the number of case studies used, particularly in the pitching component of the unit.
Action Taken
Additional case studies were introduced.
Source: Unit coordinator
Feedback
Consider, should the unit have further offerings, including an oral component to the grant application component, to allow students to further demonstrate pitching ability in an applied grant context.
Recommendation
Consider adding an oral component to assignment 1 for future iterations of the unit.
Action Taken
In Progress
Unit learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:

  1. Articulate key theoretical and empirical underpinnings of persuasion in an innovation and entrepreneurship context
  2. Critique innovation and entrepreneurship pitches and marketing campaigns, and anticipate paths of resistance
  3. Create sustainable campaigns around innovations, taking advantage of traditional and new media pathways
  4. Write a grant application that follows current 'best practice'.

Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Learning Outcomes
Assessment Tasks Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4
1 - Practical Assessment • • • •
2 - Presentation • • •
Alignment of Graduate Attributes to Learning Outcomes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Graduate Attributes Learning Outcomes
1 2 3 4
1 - Communication • • • •
2 - Problem Solving •
3 - Critical Thinking • • • •
6 - Information Technology Competence •
7 - Cross Cultural Competence •
8 - Ethical practice • •
Alignment of Assessment Tasks to Graduate Attributes
• Introductory Level
• Intermediate Level
• Graduate Level
Assessment Tasks Graduate Attributes
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10