Design Sprint Workshop for a Real AI Startup (4 Weeks)

IMPORTANT:

This is a 4-day virtual workshop, co-hosted by Product Pub and GSR Ventures. 

By signing up for this event, you are committing to all workshops on 10/23, 11/6, 11/13 and 11/20, Friday nights from 6:00-9:30pm PST.

Due to the workshop format, we would accept limited participates (<=42 total). First come first serve. Our previous two design sprint workshops were sold out in hours. 

We are charging $100 per participate to cover the heavy operational cost associated with this event. We would reward you $20 credit for our future events if you participate in all 4 events. About $600 will be rewarded to the winning team/s in the final pitch. 

Event Intro:

The Design Sprint is a five-day process for solving problems and testing new ideas, invented by Google and perfected with more than 150 startups at GV. It is shared with the world in the bestselling book Sprint. 

Product Pub has modified the original Design Sprint framework so that participants can learn it hands-on at an even faster pace. This well-designed series of workshop would span 2-3 hours each time, with ~10 hours in total along with optional social/networking time. We also work with real companies to create a real product problem for participants to work on. E.g. previously we worked on creating various social networks as well as expanding the member base for a bank. This time, we partnered with Akia, an AI company that enabling hotels to text-message their guests, streamlining operations and facilitating safe, contactless options for check-in, communication, and on-property requests.

Evan Chen, the CEO of Akia and Yuechen Zhao, partner of GSR Ventures will be joining us to share their insights and discuss about the challenges they are facing in the entrepreneurial world.

Upon completion of the entire series of workshop, participants will

• Get hands-on experience with step-by-step instructions;
• Gain solid foundations needed to design from scratch;
• Understand how design thinking can be applied to real life;
• Receive $20 credit for our future events; 
• Have a chance to pitch a product proposal to Akia leadership and win cash rewards ($600 for winning team/s). 

Week 1:

10/23 - Framework and Intro of the Case

Week 2:

11/6 - Understand/Define, Sketch/Diverge

Week 3:

11/13 - Decide & Prototype

Week 4:

11/20 - Validate, Wrap-up & Social

About Akia 

Akia was founded in 2018 by a team of ex-Facebook engineers with a mission of changing the way people engage with the businesses around them. Akia is currently focused on enabling hotels to text-message their guests, streamlining operations and facilitating safe, contactless options for check-in, communication, and on-property requests. For more information, visit www.akia.ai. Akia is a profilo company of GSR Ventures. 

Evan Chen is the founder and CEO at Akia. He is a self-taught software engineer and formerly an engineering lead at Facebook.

About GSR Ventures

GSR Ventures is a global venture capital firm founded in 2004 with USD $3B under management. We invest in early stage technology companies and back entrepreneurs building large, disruptive businesses in enterprise software, consumer platforms, and digital health. For more information, visit www.gsrventures.com

Yuechen Zhao is a Partner at GSR Ventures, where he focuses on early-stage investments in enterprise software and consumer platforms. Prior to GSR Ventures, Yuechen founded a personalized travel startup and built products at Google, Uber, and a fintech startup. Yuechen received his BA in Computer Science from Harvard University.