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Dear colleagues

I would like to draw your attention to The Disruptor: An Innovation and Corporate Entrepreneurship Simulation is a free, open-source simulation to support innovation management, corporate entrepreneurship, technology strategy, and strategic management classes. In the simulation, players take the role of Chief Innovation Officer at Vélox Dynamics, a fictional Belgian fitness equipment company, across a three-year tenure. The firm spans consumer products, commercial fitness equipment for gyms and hospitals, and a connected digital platform, in a sector being reshaped by wearables, wellness, AI-led services, and platform-led ecosystems.

Key features: The simulation is designed for extended engagement, creating a living, playable textbook. It is more akin to commercial gaming simulations than traditional educational ones. Students enter the simulation through a structured welcome pack: a tour of the fictional Vélox Dynamics corporate website and an HBS-style case study covering the firm's governance, products, and strategic context. Upon starting, the player operates a managerial cockpit with a stream of messages and a dynamic network-map that links products to capabilities. There are over 1000 events that range from competitor moves and board nudges to staff resignations, market shifts, regulatory pressure, and unsolicited proposals from external partners, each demanding a decision under time pressure. Players need to learn to manage sixteen interconnected systems with support from key staff, including R&D portfolio, innovation launchpad, IP management, alliances, the Vélox+ platform, technology scouting, standards, organisation, staff and hiring, grant funding, corporate venturing, crowdsourcing, university research, competitors and markets, and innovation strategy. There are over 5000 different content elements, so each playthrough should be different. Short and long tutorials together with guide buttons in every system support onboarding, and players can stop or speed up the game speed as they wish.

Modes: The simulation has five modes. Forge runs the full simulation with every system available from the outset. Pivot requires the firm to enter a new sector and rebuild capability and market position. Jugaad halves the budget and emphasises frugal innovation through grants, alliances, and external knowledge. Gauntlet is a high-difficulty mode for experienced players, with hostile markets and tight targets. Incubator is for flexible use, as students begin with four systems unlocked (R&D, Innovation Launchpad, Strategy and Competitors) and instructors can progressively unlock the remaining systems when they want. The simulation was designed to support a range of teaching formats, such as unsupported play where the instructor posts a link to the simulation on the course page, a single session with a 90-minute to two-hour class in which students play Forge or Incubator, or multiple sessions with each class introducing a new managerial system or students taking increasing more difficult modes of the game. Players are supported by a 'Pantheon of Innovation', drawn from 40 scholars, including Joseph Schumpeter, Edith Penrose, Richard Nelson, Chris Freeman, Giovanni Dosi, Nathan Rosenberg, and David Teece, who act in-game advisors.

Learning objectives - Students learn to build and run a corporate innovation system: managing an R&D portfolio across three horizons; navigating the tension between exploiting what works and exploring what might; and configuring appropriability strategies through patents, trade secrets, and licensing. They practise open innovation in depth, sourcing knowledge and capability externally through strategic alliances, sponsored university research, technology scouting, internal and external idea submissions, lead-user engagement, the Vélox+ platform and its complementors, corporate venturing in start-ups, and grant-funded collaborative research. They drive corporate entrepreneurship: developing new products, services, and business models within an established organisation; building corporate venturing capabilities; surfacing intrapreneurial ideas through internal competitions and bootleg projects; and leading strategic renewal by reconfiguring capabilities and entering new markets while sustaining current operations. They make strategic calls under genuine uncertainty and experience causal ambiguity. They also practise systemic thinking, seeing how IP, alliances, R&D, capabilities, and culture interact, and navigating the path dependence created by their own earlier choices. They shape the organisation itself, including its structure, incentives, and culture. They must meet challenging objectives set by a board that oversees and judges their performance in yearly reviews.

Access and resources. The simulation is contained in a single HTML file and runs in any modern browser without installation, registration, or cost. It is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 for education use. It may be forked, modified, and extended on the same terms and all that is required is to give appropriate credit. The simulation is available at https://disruptorsim.org/. Faculty may request an access code for the full teaching pack, with a teaching note, model assessments, and a presentation via the contact email (ammon.salter@wbs.ac.uk).

Citation. Salter, A. (2026). The Disruptor: An Innovation and Corporate Entrepreneurship Simulation (Version 1.0) [Computer software]. https://disruptorsim.org/