General Course Information
1.1 Course details
| Course code: | LLAW6301 / JDOC6301 |
| Course name: | Law, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (LITE) – Postgraduate Internship |
| Programme offered under: | LLM Programme / JD Programme |
| Semester: | Second |
| Prerequisites / Co-requisites: | No |
| Credit point value: | 9 credits / 6 credits |
| Cap on student numbers: | 30 (Full time students only) |
| Video link: | https://youtu.be/zU5TtEOqwLg |
1.2 Course description
This internship course gives students the opportunity to spend the equivalent of one day per week during the semester with an innovation and technology-focused organization – this could be a tech startup, social enterprise, non-profit trade association, governmental organization, or even a law firm). LITE Lab works with a variety of ecosystem partners such as Cyberport, Hong Kong Science & Technology Park, HKU’s iDendron, and the Fintech Association of Hong Kong, among others, to be internship host companies. The course instructor will finalize matching between each student and host company at the start of the semester; matching will be based on organization interest and availability, as well as student experience and preferences.
Considering uncertain working arrangements related to the ongoing pandemic, students and host companies will mutually agree the extent to which the each student internship will be in-person or remotely-based, or some combination of the two. During the matching process, students and hosts will have the option to indicate a preference for in-person work, remote work, or either/both, and efforts will be made to match accordingly.
During class, students will be introduced to practical communication and writing skills as well as the innovation and technology methodologies of organizations (startup and established), such as the business model canvas, design thinking, and agile project management.
The semester will end with a final student presentation including invited guests, such as our host companies and ecosystem partners.
Examples of past student internship tasks include drafting white papers, organizing legaltech and regtech pitch competitions, and creating online training materials.
To enable timely and effective matching of students and host companies, upon enrollment, students may only drop the course with the course instructor’s consent.
This student internship course is not a clinical course supervised by a licensed legal practitioner, and accordingly students cannot and do not give any legal advice.
Please note that all participants in this course must comply with the relevant Hong Kong employment and immigration Ordinances. Accordingly, all related University approvals must be obtained in advance both for student enrollment in this course and for commencement of internship work, particularly for non-local students.
To learn more about LITE Lab@HKU, please see its student recently created website (which is still subject to updating) at https://litelab.law.hku.hk/
1.3 Course teachers
| Name | E-mail address | Office | Consultation | |
| Course convenor | Stephanie Biedermann | sbied@hku.hk | CCT 802 | By email |
Learning Outcomes
2.1 Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) for this course
During this course, students will:
CLO 1 Gain practical first-hand experience by learning from, conducting research with, and assisting some of the daily operations of a Hong Kong technology company.
CLO 2 Apply communication, organization, and research skills to one or more projects over the period of the semester, in a workplace setting under the supervision of a host technology company.
CLO 3 Strengthen awareness of the professional, legal, and technological challenges faced by technology companies, and reflect on these issues by creating materials that explain these concepts to a general audience.
2.2 LLM and JD Programme Learning Outcomes (PLOs)
Please refer to the following link:
LLM – https://course.law.hku.hk/llm-plo/
JD – https://course.law.hku.hk/jd-plo/
2.3 Programme Learning Outcomes to be achieved in this course
| PLO A | PLO B | PLO C | PLO D | PLO E | PLO F | |
| CLO 1 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 2 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 3 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Assessment(s)
3.1 Assessment Summary
| Assessment task* | Due date | Weighting | Feedback method* | Course learning outcomes |
| Learning reflections | TBC | 10% | 1, 5 | 3 |
| Attendance and class contribution | N/A | 10% | 4, 5 | 2, 3 |
| Internship final project / tool / explainer | TBC | 40% | 2, 3, 5 | 2, 3 |
| Internship participation and delivery | TBC | 40% | 2, 3 | 1, 2, 3 |
| *Feedback method (to be determined by course teacher) | |
| 1 | A general course report to be disseminated through Moodle |
| 2 | Individual feedback to be disseminated by email / through Moodle |
| 3 | Individual review meeting upon appointment |
| 4 | Group review meeting |
| 5 | In-class verbal feedback |
3.2 Assessment Detail
To be advised by the course convenor.
3.3 Grading Criteria
Students will be assessed on a pass/fail basis.
Learning Activities
4.1 Learning Activity Plan
| Seminar: | 3 hours / week for 12 teaching weeks |
| Internship work: | 9.5 hours / week for 12 teaching weeks |
Remarks: the normative student study load per credit unit is 25 ± 5 hours (ie. 150 ± 30 hours for a 6-credit course), which includes all learning activities and experiences within and outside of classroom, and any assessment task and examinations and associated preparations.
4.2 Details of Learning Activities
To be advised by course convenor.
Learning Resources
5.1 Resources
| Reading materials: | Reading materials are posted on Moodle |
| Core reading list: | TBA |
| Recommended reading list: | TBA |
5.2 Links
Please refer to the following link: http://www.law.hku.hk/course/learning-resources/