Since its pilot in Spring 2020, this course has paired top Gies students with Fortune-100 partners in insurance, consumer goods, finance, logistics and more. Teams have:
- migrated legacy ERPs to Microsoft Dynamics,
- built NLP pipelines to triage support tickets,
- prototyped RPA solutions with Automation Anywhere, and
- explored blockchain and LLM use-cases for global brands.
The result? Real-world résumé bullets, client references, and a reputation for “learning by doing.”
Where We’re Going Next
Beginning Fall 2025, BADM 372 evolves into AI Solopreneurship & Product Building—a studio course that turns each student into a solo founder who commands generative-AI tools (Lovable, Bolt, Cursor, Windsurf) to ideate, code, and publicly launch a web or mobile product.
| What hasn’t changed | What’s new |
|---|---|
| • Selective cohort (20-30) • Hands-on, project-based learning • Peer & industry feedback • Evening studio format | • One venture you own from idea → launch • Public “build-in-public” blogs & Product Hunt release • Agile sprints, GitHub, CI/CD, Stripe/Polar payments • AI safety & ethics thread in every sprint |
You’ll still present to alumni, VCs, and corporate mentors—only now you’re pitching your own product.
You can read about the experience of the students from previous semesters on the blog. As a sample one project was with is a fortune 100 consumer goods company with a salesforce consulting project and another was a Microsoft dynamics cloud ERP consulting project with a B2B supplier. In Fall 2022 we focused on Blockchain research and prototyping projects, while in Fall 2023/2024 we focused on Large Language Models. You can take a look at the syllabus for the upcoming semester.
What You’ll Do in 15 Weeks
- Ideate with AI tools and lock a problem worth solving.
- Pair-program with AI no-code builders to ship a micro-prototype in Week 2.
- Sprint through four build cycles, adding AI features, analytics, payments, and an admin dashboard.
- Launch publicly, gather real metrics, and reflect on failures & pivots.
- Graduate with a portfolio that positions you for AI-product roles—or your first angel check.
Here is an overview of the projects the students have worked on over the years, though this year it will be your ideas.
AI Chatbots – Create a knowledge bot for new employees and Automating competitor intelligence using Large Language Models
Legacy to Cloud ERP Migration – Setup ETL process for moving a small business from a legacy on-premise system to Microsoft Dynamics (Business Operations) Cloud ERP.
Natural Language Processing – Analyze and classify support tickets(using some classification algorithms) from internal clients using test development environments and help the firm speed the system development life cycle.
Process Optimization – Evaluate processes for Cable management for B2B customers, and establish constraints. (Stretch target) Prototype a customer and internal-facing application for cable management.
RPA – A project on Robotic Process Automation, where the team evaluated a few processes and recommend which ones are suitable for automation. They also got to learn an RPA tool, Automation Anywhere. RPA is the foundation for setting up advanced analytics for process optimization. Another project focused on using the Microsoft stack for automating customer interactions and inventory tracking for a research lab at a Fortune 100 company.
This course allows you to apply the topics you learn in the Information Systems and/or Operations Management curriculum to the real-world and give you skills in using AI for turning your ideas into apps, for yourself or for your companies.
Pre-requisites
Information systems students must complete BADM350 before registering for this course. Ideally, 352 and 353 as well, but concurrent enrollment in one or both of these courses would also help.
Operations Management students should complete BADM 275 or 375 before taking the course.
The BADM 372-IOP Infosys & OpMgmt Practicum course can fulfill the requirement for an IS Major Elective course OR an IS Program Elective course. It cannot fulfill both requirements.
The BADM 372-IOP InfoSys & OpMgmt Practicum course is also a BPM/OM Program Elective (Choose Three) course.
This course will be offered every fall usually evenings Tuesday/Thursday 5:oo pm to 6:20 pm . The ideal candidate would be one that meets the pre-requisites above and has some experience in working in team projects or an internship/co-op at a firm.
If you have questions, email me at Vishal AT Illinois DOT edu