Generative AI-enhanced Entrepreneurship Education by Integrating the PIPE Syllabus and the EARS Template

Entrepreneurship education (EE) has gained popularity worldwide since the 1990s due to its proven ability to enhance students' entrepreneurial intention, creativity, critical thinking, coordination, and collaboration in teamwork (The 4C) — all of which are essential for both new venture startups and other jobs (Bhat and Khan 2014, Bogatyreva et al 2019, Sun et al 2020, Wang et al 2022,). However, in Hong Kong, EE was relatively slow and less effective. In 2009, the entrepreneurial intention of Hong Kong youth was approximately 7%, ranking in the lowest band of 0–10% , against the middle band of 11–30% and the highest band of 31–65% (GEM 2009). By 2016, Hong Kong's entrepreneurial intention had increased to 16.3%, but it still ranked only 37th out of 64 countries/regions (GEM 2016). In 2020, Hong Kong's youth lagged far behind mainland China in both the EE rate (14.5% vs. 84.44%) and entrepreneurial intention (25.3% vs. 96.1%) (Sun et al 2024). An internal review revealed that about 80% of applicants to an entrepreneurship incubation program were not adequately prepared. At the macro level, Hong Kong's global ranking in the entrepreneurship ecosystem has dropped from 25th in 2019 to 41st in 2024, with the item "entrepreneurial talent" receiving a score of 1 on a 1-10 scale. Therefore, there is an urgent need for EE in Hong Kong. The Foundation of Innovation and Entrepreneurship course (GE2304) was initially offered in 2010 and was reactivated in response to the urgent request of the HK Tech 300 program in 2020. While EE courses are all supposed to run in small classes with 30-50 students, the number of students registering for this course has rapidly increased to 150 in last semester, indicating a pressing demand and a challenge in teaching such a large class. This project aims to use generative Chat-GPT to enhance personalized individual learning and project-based team learning in a large class focused on innovation and entrepreneurship. Following a structured PIPE syllabus by the PI (Sun 2011, 2012), the project will leverage AI to empower students to achieve learning outcomes by discovering Problems, generating new Ideas, designing Products, and developing a business plan for a new Enterprise. The project does not just suggest students explore AI themselves. Many previous studies have reported that students often simply copy answers from the Chat, which in fact hinders their learning. To address this common yet serious problem, this project introduces a 4-step EARS assignment template, which covers Explore, AI support, Revise, and Summarize. This template resolves the issue of copying and helps students learn through thinking, interacting, comparing, and reflecting. With the support of the EARS template, students will report their understanding and preparation of the assignment, the suggestions received from AI Chat, the final revised version, and what they have learned.   This project aims not only to benefit a course or an incubation program but also to nurture entrepreneurship talents for the long-term development of Hong Kong.