Assignment 2 — Innovation Seminar

General Overview

In order to build good and original innovations, it is important to evaluate what other people have already done — and think critically about what is good and bad, as well as explore ways to improve and generate new ideas. In addition, it is important to learn how to articulate one's ideas clearly and succinctly, both orally and in writing. The innovation seminar is designed to help students:

1. Learn how to identify and assess innovative ideas.
2. Gain a better understanding of existing innovations.
3. Learn how to present (or sell one's ideas).
4. Learn how to articulate their ideas in writing.

For this assignment, you will form teams of up to four members. Each team will identify a recent AI innovation from the past 1–2 years in the software industry. The scope is intentionally broad, so you will need to explore deeply to uncover interesting and potentially niche examples. In this context, an “AI innovation” may range from software applications that use AI capabilities (e.g. medical imaging software that can identify life-threatening issues) to software engineering tools or processes that use AI to improve the software development process itself. Your team’s main task will be to analyse the innovation and pitch it as though you were presenting it to your company's management team (the rest of the class) on Tuesday, 8 September 2026 at 2:30 am.

Assigned Innovation

As part of this assignment, you will need to delve deeply into the problem space that your assigned innovation aims to address.

You may find that the identified AI Application encompasses multiple innovations. It is up to your team to integrate these elements into a coherent and unified presentation within the given time constraints. Alternatively, you may choose to focus on a single specific aspect of the innovation, but do ensure that this focus is substantial and compelling enough for your presentation.

Target Audience & Level of Technicality

You can assume the target audience to be your fellow classmates, and the whole goal of this assignment is for you to convince your classmates that your assigned idea is the coolest! A suitable level of technicality is allowed in the presentation. That is, you are allowed to use technical terms that you think your classmates will be able to understand, but please don't start going through the steps of Dijkstra's algorithm line-by-line during your presentation.

Grading and Admin

The presentations should attempt to cover the following points about the chosen innovation:

1. Description of the innovation.
2. Why we should care about the innovation you chose (i.e. the potential impact).
3. What is good about the innovation.
4. What are the limitations of the innovation, and suggestions on how they can be overcome.
5. What are some the aspects of innovation you will design / implement differently, and why.

For engaging and excitingly quick pace presentation, we are using a format called Pecha Kucha (see this video (opens in a new tab) for an example).

In brief, each presentation is limited to 20 slides, and each slide should have exactly 20 seconds of air time. This means that each presentation should be approximately 7 minutes (6 minutes 40 seconds to be precise) long. Please stay within this time limit. You can choose to have a single person present or have more than one, but keep in mind that you have a limited time. The teaching staff WILL cut you off after the time limit.

Perhaps it is impossible to cover all the suggested points above in 7 minutes? Well, the point here is to make a thoughtful presentation. You need to work out as a group exactly what to do if you can't fit everything into 7 minutes. Sometimes less is more. Sometimes it's not. Life is full of hard questions.

You can present using PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, or whatever tools you wish to use. Surprise us (in a good way) if you can. BEFORE submitting, please ensure that your slides auto-advance every 20 seconds. No cheating! 😜

Following the presentation, there will be a short Q&A session opened to the rest of the class for a maximum of 5 minutes.

Innovation Critique

After listening to all the presentations, each student will be randomly assigned to write about two of the innovations that were presented (will not be your own presentation) and have to write about the following:

1. Based on what the presenting team has shared, describe and explain what the innovation or technology is about. Please do not regurgitate the entire presentation. Summarise the points and keep them unopinionated. (5%)
2. Was the presentation effective? Did the group show that they fully internalised the presentation techniques discussed in the Presentation Workshop Videos (PUNCH->WIIFY->Plan)? (6%)
3. What are your (original) thoughts? (9%)

The fun part is that the assignment of the presentations each student has to write about will be done only AFTER all the presentations are over. This means that every student will have to pay attention to every presentation 😎. Those who like Russian Roulette are welcome to skip and zone out for some presentations.

This is not a literature class, and you are not required to write in poetry. We only ask that you think carefully about what you heard and express your ideas clearly. Points will not be taken off for typos or grammatical errors as long as the ideas are expressed clearly and can be understood easily. There is no minimum length, but do have some mercy on your poor lecturer and try to keep each innovation critique within 300 words. What matters is not how much you write but the quality of your thoughts and ideas and how much you actually learnt from the process.

You are, of course, also welcome to write about other aspects of the seminar and also about lessons learnt in addition to this assignment. The innovation critiques should be submitted on Coursemology by Wednesday, 9 September 2026 at 7:59 pm (i.e. the next day).

Response and Follow-up of Critique

The innovation critiques will be setup as a "Forum Post Response" question, i.e. you will first post your critique in the Coursemology forum, then include the link in your submission. This also mean that the critiques will be publicly visible after the submission deadline. You will read the critiques written by your coursemates on your presentation and have an online discussion. Engage with your critic(s) meaningfully: e.g. clarify, refute with good tact and evidence, accepting potential gaps etc.

Just bear in mind that the goal of CS3216 is to learn. You do not do better in this segment of the assignment by being nasty and running your coursemates down. Be civil. Remember to be polite and kind. If others post comments disagreeing with you, do not be too defensive. All these comments should be posted by Saturday, 12 September 2026 at 7:59 am.

How many comments should you post? As many as you think is appropriate and sufficient to earn the 10% grade for this part of the assignment.

Remember: everything will go well (including your grade) if you demonstrate that you actually learnt something and have approached this innovation seminar in a thoughtful way 😃.

You will also get points if your friends post stuff on your forum posts. The idea here is that whether you can write stuff that is thoughtful enough to attract readers and people to post comments is also a measure of "quality".

Assessment Scheme

The following are the weightages for the two components:

• 50% Group presentation
• 30% Innovation critique (what you write in your posts)
• 20% Response and follow-up of critiques (addressing critiques on your chosen innovation and responses to your posts)

Overall, the innovation seminar is worth 10% of your final grade.

Mode of Submission

The slides for the presentation should be named group-<number>-seminar.{pptx|key} and uploaded to Coursemology by Monday, 7 September 2026 at 7:59 pm, because we will be downloading the slides to project on-screen or screen-share during class.

The innovation critiques should be submitted within 24 hours of the innovation seminar, by Wednesday, 9 September 2026 at 7:59 pm. Your comments for the mutual critique part should be made by Saturday, 12 September 2026 at 7:59 am.

Clarifications and questions related to this assignment should be posted to the Coursemology forum.

The way this assignment is structured, it might seem very stressful — but it's really not quite as bad as it seems. It's generally accepted (by past students) as the "breather space" between the more intensive assignment one and three.

Good luck and have fun! 🙂