Named owners. Work that ships.
SDSU students. Teams of two or three. One existing San Diego small business. One semester. Map the shop, propose one build, ship it under review, hand it off.
The missing layer is trust.
“AI-fluent and unemployable at the same time.” Talent is not the gap. Proof is. A class demo does not tell a hiring manager you can sit with an owner and ship.
This program is that proof: a named owner, a live deployment, a portfolio artifact that went through technical and business review, and a LinkedIn recommendation written by the business.
Fall 2026 is ten teams of two or three students. Fowler College of Business, with room for students from Arts & Letters and Engineering.
You embed. You build one thing. You hand it off.
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Map the business
Sit with the owner. Map what the shop actually does. Rank opportunities by value. Do not build yet.
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Propose one build
One proposal, scoped to the owner’s real budget — tools they can afford to keep running.
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Build it
Ship that one system, with weekly check-ins alongside the owner and program mentors.
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Review, then hand off
Technical review, then business review. The owner decides whether to run it. Declining is an acceptable outcome.
What you leave with.
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A named owner
Field work with a real San Diego business, not a case packet.
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A portfolio artifact
A working system that went through review — not a class demo.
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A LinkedIn recommendation
Written by the business, about work they actually ran or declined on the merits.
Join a team.
Write Lucas Morales. Forms will replace this mailto when they exist.