Short Classroom Activities

Breaking the fear of “strange” ideas · Materials: A sheet with 30 empty circles

1. Turn as many circles as possible into different things (a clock, a ball, a face…) within 3 minutes.
2. Compare your count with a classmate’s: who went beyond the familiar? Who combined more than one circle?
3. Ask: why did we stop at the first ideas?

Fluency comes before quality, and breaking rules nobody set.

Generating ideas without pressure · Materials: Nothing

1. Pose a problem (such as long waits at clinics).
2. Each team proposes the worst possible solution within two minutes.
3. Reverse the bad solutions: what does each one become if we flip it?

Reverse brainstorming frees up thinking, and many good ideas come out of the worst ones.

The difference between features and benefits · Materials: A pen or anything on the table

1. A volunteer tries to sell the pen to the instructor within a minute.
2. The class notices: did they talk about the pen or about the buyer’s need?
3. The second attempt starts by asking the buyer about their need.

The customer doesn’t buy a product; they buy a solution to their need.

Seeing opportunity in the familiar · Materials: A paper clip or an empty water bottle

1. Each team takes a very ordinary object.
2. Within 4 minutes: what is the best way to create value from it for someone?
3. The most valuable idea (not the strangest) wins.

Value doesn’t live in the object, but in the need it meets.

Training the observing eye · Materials: A phone

1. At the start of the lecture, each student writes one problem they noticed on their way to the university.
2. The instructor reads 5 of them at random.
3. The class votes: which one does more than half the room experience?

Opportunities are all around us, but we need to train our eyes to see them.

Listening instead of persuading · Materials: Nothing

1. Each student interviews a classmate they don’t know about “the last time you were late for something important.”
2. No suggesting solutions. Just ask: What happened? Why? What did you do?
3. Swap roles, then share the strangest reason you heard.

A good interview reveals what people don’t say in questionnaires.

A feel for numbers · Materials: A picture of a familiar product (a cup of coffee, a meal, a car wash)

1. Each team estimates the product’s variable ingredient costs.
2. Then estimates the shop’s fixed monthly costs.
3. They calculate in the calculator: how many cups must the shop sell each day to break even?

Profit isn’t just the selling price minus the materials; fixed costs eat a lot.

Clarity of the idea · Materials: A phone

1. Write your venture idea in a post of no more than 20 words.
2. Pass it to another team: did they understand who the customer is and what the benefit is?
3. Rewrite it based on what they didn’t understand.

If your idea can’t be understood in one line, it won’t be understood in a pitch.

Making a decision based on evidence · Materials: A scenario card the instructor reads out

1. Read a short scenario: “A team trialed a car wash service in company parking lots. Only 3 people ordered, but 20 asked: do you clean and sanitize the inside of the car?”
2. Each team decides within 3 minutes: do we persevere, adjust, or change direction? Why?
3. Discuss: what evidence did you rely on?

Changing direction based on evidence isn’t failure; it’s intelligence.

Thinking about all the parties in a venture · Materials: Paper and pen

1. The instructor presents a common idea (a mobile barber, a mobile workshop, a mobile car wash).
2. Each team draws a face for each party: the customer, the service provider and the venture owner, and roughly calculates how many customers are served a day and what price works.
3. Then the team adjusts the model until everyone smiles, or decides the idea doesn’t work.

An idea that is good for the customer alone is not a venture; a successful venture satisfies all its parties.

The power of the prototype · Materials: Paper and pens

1. Each team draws its idea on one sheet with almost no words.
2. The sheets are put up, and students walk around writing on a sticky note: what did you understand?
3. The team compares what people understood with what it meant.

A simple picture reveals whether the idea is clear or only in your head.

Consolidating learning at the end of the lecture · Materials: A phone or a small slip of paper

1. Before leaving, each student completes the sentence: “Today I discovered that…”
2. And a second sentence: “This week I will try…”
3. The instructor reads some of them at the start of the next lecture.

A short reflection turns an activity into learning.

A real entrepreneurial experience outside the classroom · Materials: SAR 10, hypothetical or real, and a week

1. Each team tries to create as much value as possible in a week, starting from just SAR 10 (or no money at all).
2. Value can be profit or a service to the community; what matters is that a real person benefits.
3. Each team presents what it did in two minutes.

Your biggest resource isn’t money, but observation, relationships and initiative.