Summer 2025 CS Course Listings

This file contains the Summer 2025 course listings for the Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Archive of past courses

Course code: COMP 6211K
Course title: Build Your First AI Startup
Instructor: Prof. Jiaya JIA
Office: 3559
Telephone: 2358-6993
Email:
WWW Page: https://course.cse.ust.hk/comp6211k/

Area in which course can be counted: Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Course description:
This course empowers students to harness the potential of artificial intelligence and deep learning in developing innovative tools and applications. The curriculum covers essential topics such as machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, large language models and product development, equipping students with the skills using AI tools to navigate and launch their AI startups.

Background:
The instructor's approval is required for undergrad students to register for the course for credits. There are no strict prerequisites for this course. However, it would be beneficial if you have:
- Passion to use state-of-the-art AI for creating new products and Start-ups
- Basic programming skills in Python or willing to learn it during this course
- Basic prior knowledge on image processing, geometry, and linear algebra
- Experience on using LLM AI systems and tools

Course objective:
Through intensive lectures and hands-on trainings, participants will:
1) learn cutting-edge technologies in foundation model, large language/vision models, in addition to traditional machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing techniques;
2) identify the market needs, design and implement AI-driven solutions to address the practical problems;
3) have an overall picture about how to create and launch a startup, including proposing an innovative project idea and transforming the idea into viable business venture in the rapidly evolving tech ecosystem.

Course outline/content (by major topics):
Each time of course includes two parts, which are lecture and tutorial, respectively. The major topics are as follows:
- Introduction to AI startups
- Business Fundamentals
- AI Technologies Overview
- Deep Dive into NLP and LLM
- Exploring Computer Vision for Business Applications
- Leveraging AI Agents in Startups
- Product Development and Management in AI Startups
- Pitching and Launching Your AI Startup
- Legal and Ethical Considerations in AI
- AI Startup Case Studies

Reference books/materials:
1) Agents:
- Agents, Google, Sept. 2024
- Building Effective Agents, Anthropic, Oct. 2024
- State of AI Agents, Langbase Research, 2024
- The state of the AI Agents ecosystem: The tech, use cases, and economics, Insight, 2024
2) Vision:
- Digital Image Processing, 4th edition, Gonzalez and Woods, 2018
- A Computational Investigation into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information, David Marr, 2010
- Multiple View Geometry in Computer Vision, Richard Hartley, 2004
3) Deep Learning:
- Dive Into Deep Learning By Aston Zhang, Zachary C. Lipton, Mu Li, and Alexander J. Smola PDF, 2020
- Neural Networks and Deep Learning By Michael Nielsen Online book, 2016
- Deep Learning Step by Step with Python: A Very Gentle Introduction to Deep Neural Networks for Practical Data Science By N. D. Lewis

Grading scheme:
90% for three times of project presentations, 10% for class participation

Available for final year UG students to enroll: Yes

Minimum CGA required for UG students: 90%

Please visit Class Schedule & Quota (Summer 2025) for the timetable and quota.

Archive of past courses

Last modified on 2025-08-13.