Question 1 (2 marks)

Amy is a vision science student at UC who has an innovative idea for new smart contact lenses. Being a creative and ambitious person, she envisions a product with a variety of applications in different fields, such as entertainment (e.g., playing VR/AR games), health and well-being (e.g., monitoring sugar levels in tears), and military (e.g., enhanced night-vision). She believes that technology will soon catch up, and the smart lenses could even be powered by batteries that run on the wearers tears, making them extra safe. She reaches out to you, her best friend, to assist her in her creativity process.

1. Identify and apply at least two of the different creativity techniques to help develop Amys

idea further into a more concrete one.

2. In this context, Amy could be thought of as an idea generator. Since she has asked for your assistance, perform a SWOT analysis of yourself and identify which of the different roles of technological innovation you would best fit in.

Question 2 (1 mark)

Now that you and Amy have a more concrete idea about the product, the next step would be to pitch the idea to potential investors. Amy is excited about her idea and just wants to go out there and share her idea with the world. However, you are hesitant as you are worried that her idea might get stolen. So, you advise her to first come up with a strategy to protect her idea before presenting it to potential investors.

a. Advise Amy on how best she can protect her intellectual property before she pitches her idea to potential investors.

Question 3 (1 mark)

Following your advice, Amy follows the best strategy to get some IP protection for her idea and then starts reaching out to potential investors. Eventually, a suitable investor is found who is quite sold on the idea and is willing to invest a large sum of money on the smart contact lenses. With the newly acquired funding, Amy starts thinking about creating a start-up and wants you to join her. Both of you discuss the best legal form of organization that you can adopt.

a. What legal form of organization do you think is most appropriate in the given scenario? Explicitly state any assumptions that you make. (Hint: Succinctly discuss the pros and cons of the different forms of organizations and choose the best one for the situation)

Question 4 (1 marks)

Now that you have your own organization, it is time to come up with a strategic plan for your new organization.

a. Come up with a suitable vision statement for your new organization. Identify at least two specific, long-term goals that support your vision, and break down one of the goals into at least two objectives and describe at least one strategy that you will use to achieve each objective.

Question 5 (1 mark)

You and Amy have now recruited some qualified engineers and engineering managers. You have the necessary manpower to start working on the design of the smart contact lenses. After series of discussions with the technical team, you realise that it is important to do some form of qualitative

forecasting. This qualitative forecasting will give you a good understanding in order to create a better design of the smart lenses and their features.

a. Discuss which of the different approaches to qualitative forecasting would you employ in this scenario and why.

Question 6 (2 marks)

You have a team of engineers responsible for developing some IoT features for the smart contact lenses. The team is on the verge of a technical breakthrough, but there are some issues. Some of the members of the team are not happy and feel that their input is not valued enough. They believe that the team manager, Richard, is just pushing his own agenda and not giving the team members the opportunity to share their thoughts. One of the key engineers on the team, Lucy, is so fed up that and is thinking of leaving the company and joining a competitor. Amy asks you to step in and try to resolve the issue. You speak to Richard, and his reasoning is that he wants to ensure the company launches the product with the IOT features before the competitors.

1. Analyse the merits and demerits of Richards approach to leading his team. Discuss whether a trade-off can be achieved between Richards approach and the concerns of his team members, while maintaining their advantage over their competitors.
2. What are some ways in which the team can be motivated to do their best and what HR strategies could be applied to the employees who are unhappy? What are some ethical issues associated with Lucy potentially leaving and joining a competitor?

Question 7 (2 marks)

Amy has decided to develop a full-fledged research and development (R&D) arm of the organization focused on developing state-of-the-art contact lenses UCSmartEye to be launched into the Australian market. In addition to monitoring glucose levels UCSmartEye also has the capability to diagnose and treat diabetes. Amy has reached out to you to help her manage the R&D process.

1. Develop a product lifecycle for UCSmartEye stating the different activities to be undertaken at each stage of the lifecycle.
2. Which of the new product strategies would you recommend for launching the product? Give justifications for your reason?