Project Description
This project examines the practice of ethics in modern startups and entrepreneurial activities. Your group will form a fictitious company creating a feasible/real technology product or service. You will develop the 4 items below that will discuss the fundamental concept behind your company, the ethical impacts of your business and also highlight its Cultural and Ethical Policies and selected Ethics Board members. Please treat this as a real startup.
You will create a Documentation (GitHub) and YouTube Presentation as detailed below.
Documentation = create a wiki on GitHub shared repository that is public so ALL of us in the class can view it containing the following content (A different page in the wiki for EACH item below). GO here for tips on how to create a GitHub wiki. Also, view the video overview of the web interface for GitHub. Setup Github Repository to host your project STEP1: HOW to create a GitHub repository from your GitHub account (ONLY the team Github master of your group will do this --you only need 1 repository that your team will SHARE) : https://docs.github.com/en/github/getting-started-with-github/create-a-repo STEP2: Sharing the repository: how the Github master will add the other team members to a GitHub repository as collaborators: https://help.github.jp/enterprise/2.11/user/articles/inviting-collaborators-to-a-personal-repository/ STEP 3: (For all team) You will be documenting your project on this GitHub's wiki.....everyone Read and discuss: HOW to setup a Wiki on a Github repository; https://guides.github.com/features/wikis/ Documentation WIKI Pages : (keep these names) Item1: Ethical Business Plan Item2: Cultural Policy Item 3: Ethics Policy Item 4: YouTube Presentation Item 1: Ethical Business Plan (minimum 500 words) Business plans will have the components of Company Name (1.A), Long-Term Vision Statement (1.B) as well as a discussion of Strategy (1.C.1 and 1.C.2) but may not typically include a discussion of ethics and how potential ethical impacts/issues/pitfalls that the company in the pursuit of its vision may encounter. You are going to create an "Ethical Business Plan" which does address ethical issues (see items 1.C.3 and 1.C.4 below). Item1's GitHub wiki page should include all of the following named sections and subsections (please keep these section/sub-section names exactly to facilitate peer reviewing). A. Company Name of Fictitious Company (make it a name you would like --treat this like a real startup). Remember this must be a tech company. B. Long-Term Vision Statement - write in full paragraphs not bullets a statement that addresses each of the questions below. Goals: what are the goals? Idea Origination: where did your idea come from ( a class, a job, a need)? Purpose/Values/Mission: what is the purpose, values, and mission? Key Questions: List 2 or 3 key questions that will guide the startup's choices. These should be essential questions that serve as touchstones to direct your company's efforts. For instance, how can the startup have an impact? What engages our passions? C. Strategy with Ethical Impacts AND Ethical Safeguards: for the next 3 to 5 years you will create a list of OKRs w/ metrics AND also evaluate each in terms of potential ethical impacts/issues. You should have a minimum of 3 ORKs * USE THE CONTENT YOUR INDIVIDUAL TEAM MEMBERS CREATED IN THEIR PROJECT ON Entrepreneurial Strategy with Ethical Impacts & Safeguards** C.1 : OKRs: key milestones/checkpoints described by OKRs (read here about OKRS w/ Examples) as it relates to the tech product/service your company will offer. C.2: Metrics: how to measure success metrics/measurables on EACH of your OKRs for your company. Read here about OKRs and Examples -- note Later in Item 4 you will describe experiments you will create to measure the success of your OKRs. It is important to have metrics for each OKR as this helps to functionalize and define what you mean by your OKR and can also help you develop your ideas for C.3 and C.4 below. Your metrics must be explicit. For example, you can NOT say just "customer acceptance". What does this mean? How will you measure this? A better metric would be "customer acceptance measured as the average score from a customer satisfaction survey (range 0% to 100%). C.3: Ethical Impact(s)/Issue(s). For each OKR discuss the ethical impact/issues that can arise related to this outcome for your entrepreneur startup. Example: you are developing technology to monitor at-home stroke patients and you are using cameras and machine learning to monitor the patient's facial changes. EX1: One potential OKR would be to achieve 99% accuracy with the machine learning model. What are the ethical impacts -one would be that the data collected was too narrow or simple to achieve higher accuracy. For instance, the data may be biased and only taken from young subjects. This is unethical as it could mean in use that older subjects will not have the same accuracy as what is reported. EX2:Another OKR could be to have 80% user acceptance based on the average score of a user survey given to 100 customers. This could be interpreted as having the potential ethical issue of not collecting enough customer data or again some kind of bias in the selected customers (say customers with technical backgrounds that are comfortable with using technical systems) which could lead to skewed metric data
C.4: Ethical Safeguards. For each OKR and its Ethical Impact(s)/Issue(s) you are to develop safeguards on how to avoid or reduce the ethical impacts. EX1: Following the example given in D.3 one way to safeguard against inadequate data collection would be to require a minimum number of data samples from every demographic (in this case age, you could set up age brackets of every 10 years and require a minimum of 1000 samples for each age bracket). EX2:In this example (user acceptance), again a larger number of customers and specifying a distribution of customers based on technical savvy (and other demographics) could be performed to alleviate reporting skewed metrics(you should go into detail about how this distribution is formed). Item 2 : Cultural Policy (minimum 300 words) (please keep these section/sub-section names exactly to facilitate peer reviewing). A. Core Values - Give core values of the company answering questions: How do you want to be thought of? What are the details of the core values of the company? (write in full paragraphs not bullets) B. Motivation - Give an understanding of the desired company culture by answering: What do you love? What do you fear? (write in full paragraphs not bullets) C. Summary: summary in 6 words or less the company's culture Example of Googles Cultural Summary:
Openness Innovation Excellence that comes with smartness Hands-on approach Small-company-family rapport Item 3 : Ethics Policy (minimum 500 words) (please keep these section/sub-section names exactly to facilitate peer reviewing). A. Core Items - Enumerate the core items in your ethics policy and give details of each policy item and its meaning. B. Board - List 3 real people (maybe tech leaders) that you want on your board, a brief bio, AND why you chose them for the board. (write in full paragraphs not bullets). ALL members should have some experience in the tech sector of your company (e.g. cybersecurity or say gaming). AT LEAST 2 must be experts/have significant experience in ethics DIRECTLY related to your company's tech sector. TIPS on Ethics Policies Look at examples like Google Ethics policy (found here or search)
Consider the following ideas from AI NOW report 2018: Expanding AI fairness beyond a focus on mathematics and statistical fairness toward issues of justice Accounting for the many forms of labor required to create and maintain AI systems Committing to deeper interdisciplinarity in AI Analyzing race, gender and power in AI Developing new policy interventions and strategic litigation Building coalitions between researchers, civil society, and organizers within the technology sector
Item 4 : YouTube Presentation (see below requirement) --give URL
Presentations= (there are 2 forms of presentation -BOTH are required): A. Presentation YouTube - create a YouTube (accessible) presentation (ideally under but around 15 minutes) that goes over in detail your GitHub wiki-based documentation. The wiki must be clearly readable in your video and your voice must be clear and audible. You should discuss ALL items 1-3 in your document. B. Presentation Lightening Round Presentations In Person (see deliverables below for date and time): your group will have approximately 5 minutes to do a speed presentation where you will discuss: ITEM 1-Company Name, Vision, Introduce your Team Discussion ONE point of your Ethics Policy (from ITEM 3) Discuss ONE point of your Cultural Policy (from ITEM 2) Discuss one of your Ethics Board Members(from ITEM 3). Discuss ONE of your OKRs (1.C.1) and its metrics (1.C.2), ethical impact (1.C.3) and the ethical safeguard (1.C.4) you have designed for it. NOTE: it is up to you to choose which one item of the ethics policy, one item of cultural policy, and which one ethics board member you will discuss. Project Timeline by Week Week 1- Teams are created/assigned Week 2-3- Setup Github repository Week 4-5- Brainstorming - Select Startup Tech Sector and Brainstorm Main Business Concept Week 6-8: Work on Project -FINISH Item 1 Week 8-9- Work on Project FINISH Item 2 Week 10-11- Work on Project FINISH Item 3 Week 12-13- Complete ITEM 5: Finalize GitHub readme & wiki and Create YouTube presenting the Github documentation Week 14-15- Presentations + Peer Review and Evaluate
create a schedule using the GitHub issues board to assign work and create a detailed schedule (make an issue card for each sub-section). MAKE SURE TO UPDATE your GitHub issues board as you are working and finishing items.
Brainstorming TIPS (from Stanford's class on Entrepreneurism) Identify potential opportunities. Combine your own personal experiences and creativity with external forecasts and trend analysis. How is the world changing with respect to new technologies? What is the impact of globalization on current solutions? What new requirements will those changes produce? Recent media articles on trends are often a good place to start. Additionally, you may want to look through Stanford's Office of Technology and Licensing for new technologies that have been developed at the University. Define your purpose and objectives. Identify your most promising opportunity, being careful to discriminate between an interesting technological idea and a viable market opportunity. Prepare an outline which will help you to determine what types of data and information you need to demonstrate the attractiveness of your chosen opportunity.
Deliverables:
Meet with Professor: Office hours Oct. 17, 22 , Come for a 5 minute appointment (first-come, first-serve) where ideally all of your groupmates will attend to present me your completed ITEM 1 on github reporsitory wiki. Be prepared to present it to me and get feedback. This is not a formal evaluation but, rather an opportunity to see that one you have finished ITEM 1, and that it has the depth of content and concepts (especially around Items 1.C.1 to 1.C.4).
GitHub based Wiki Report & YouTube Presentation: Due Nov 21, 11pmCreate Github Repostiory that is public so ALL can see that contains a wiki of documentation described above that includes a link to YouTube presentation and turn in the URL to this Github wiki. and post it to Canvas -> Discussions->Entreprenuer&Ethics Submission AND ALSO submit to Canvas -> Discussions->Public Posting - Entrepreneur & Ethics
In Person Lightening Round Presentation: In our in-person meeting (now via Zoom) scheduled below your group will have approximately 5 minutes to do a speed presentation where you will discuss ITEM 1-Company Name, Long Term Vision, Introduce your Team, Discussion ONE point of your Ethics and Cultural Policies and Discuss one of your Ethics Board Members. This in-person meeting will be recorded for attendance.
Required Class Meetings: On ZOOM SECTION 1: 2:45pm-4:00pm (T/Th) on these dates Dec. 3, 5 SECTION 2: 8:00am-9:15am (T/Th) on these dates Dec. 3, 5
Peer Review (see top) due 11pm Dec.7 (you will have points taken off if you do not perform this) -YOU will be reviewing ASSIGNED GROUPS other groups except your own. This will be done through Canvas and your review will take place. A discussion of how to do this review will take place in class and is discussed in *Peer Evaluated--how to do this*** (rubric on Canvas). There is a rubric to use in grading that will help structure your grading. Remember that you must always give comments for each element of the grading. You will be graded on the quality of your review cs230:computing & social responsibility homeoutlineprojectssyllabuslinks