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Overview of NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) Rathindra (Babu) DasGupta Program Director, Innovation Corps Engineering Directorate National Science Foundation
Mexico City August 12, 2014
2
Risk-Averse Culture Infects U.S. Workers, Entrepreneurs Updated June 2, 2013
NSF I-Corps™ Program Description
4
The Nation’s I-Corps “Fabric” I-Corps Nodes
I-Corps Sites
I-Corps Teams
I-Corps Mentors
This Presentation
I-Corps™ in A Nutshell
• Leveraging NSF investments in research
• Transcending the “Ditch of Death”
• Increasing Network Opportunities
• Aligns with NSF Strategy
6
Investors
Industry NSF
ove
rall
GO
ALI
STTR
AIR/
PFI
ERC
I/U
CRC
SBIR
STC
Reso
urce
s Inv
este
d
Discovery Development Commercialization
Foundations
Valley of Death
University
Small Business
I-Corps “Home”
“Ditch of Death”
I-Corps™ Background • Leveraging NSF-lineage of previous support
• Small grants to focus on creating a commercialization
roadmap
• Quick assessment
• Team-based • Curriculum-focused
I-Corps™ Team • Entrepreneurial Lead Post-doc or Student to move it forward
• I-Corps Mentor Domain-relevant & business-savvy, volunteer guide Proximity is preferred
• PI Researcher with current or previous award
I-Corps Grant Details
9% Course Tuition
10% F&A to Award Institution
81% Reasonable Efforts to Advance Commercial Readiness
Efforts may include, for example: •Prototype Development •Travel (e.g. course, prospective customer) •Equipment purchase •Expenses discussed in proposal budget
Strongly Discouraged: •PI & Mentor Compensation •Legal Fees
$50, 000 $50, 000
$50, 000 $50, 000
The National Science Foundation
I-Corps™ Curriculum
• Based on hypothesis-driven business-model discovery Pioneered by Stanford and Steve Blank
• Focuses on addressing market risk
• Requires getting out of the lab
AT LEAST 15 hours of prep per week
• Mandatory for all I-Corps participants First 3 Days (at one of the five nodes) 5 follow-on webinars with team presentations 2 Days (lessoned learned)
I-Corps™ Approach • Emphasizes experiential learning and feedback • Challenges teams to create their own business model canvas • Values revision and continual improvement of business
development elements • Expects teams to be inquisitive, motivated and capable of self
management • Full contact immersive class
It’s all about SEARCHING for a business model… MUST get out of the building to test their hypotheses… CANNOT outsource commercialization…
NSF I-Corps™ Flow Diagram
Recruiting processes
(NSF)
Pool of eligible Teams (from NSF): • Entrepreneurial
Lead • PI • Mentor
Team Selection
(NSF)
Node Assignment
(NSF)
Awarded I-Corps Teams (NSF)
Curriculum Delivery &
Refinement (Nodes)
Customer Discovery
(Teams/Nodes)
Business Model
Canvasses (Teams)
“Go” Decision (Teams)
“No-Go” Decision (Teams)
Resource Infusion
Strategic Partnership
Private Capitalization
Public Funding (e.g., SBIR, STIR, …. )
Private Sector
A Hectic First Three Years: Results
States With At Least One NSF I-Corps™ Team
A Hectic First Three Years… • I-Corps™ Teams:
319 Teams have completed the curriculum
Start-Up creations: 163/319 One acquisition
SBIR/STTR awards from various agencies
Private investments received
Entrepreneurial curricula developed
Licensing out patents, copyrights, or trademarks
65% (105 companies)
36% (58 companies)
22% (35 companies)
12% (20 companies)
2% (3 companies)
Zero female team members
At least one female teammember
One female team member
Two female team members
Three female team members
Percentage of Female Team Members of Companies Created by I-Corps Teams (n = 163)
A Hectic First Three Years… • I-Corps™ Nodes:
Bay Area (UC-B, UCSF, Stanford) NYCRIN (CUNY, NYU, Columbia) DMV (UMD, GWU, VT) GTECH UMICH
• I-Corps™ Sites: Fifteen (15)
• I-Corps™ Partners: ARPA-E NIH (Pilot activity scheduled for October) Others
Data from I-Corps Longitudinal Survey Round 1 (2011 and 2012 cohorts only)
I-Corps Influence on Career
Level 1 – Regional Training
Level 2 – Develop Tools and Resources
Level 3 – Blue Sky Research
Deliver a training program at least once a year, across disciplines
Build teams of students, faculty, researchers and other local/regional stakeholders
Deliver the curriculum to NSF’s I-Corps teams
Compile assessment and evaluation data
Engage members from the local investment community
Develop near-term tools and resources
Identify models of effective innovation content, curricula, and teaching practices
Utilize a logic model to measure and analyze any commensurate changes/ success/achievements
Further build entrepreneurial capacity in the node environments
Identify and pursue longer-term R&D projects
Leverage and analyze data from Levels 1&2
Research how institutions can improve support for innovation ecosystems
Examine and track the I-Corps teams’ outcomes
Develop methods for scaling effective practices
Explore collaborations to support commercialization - independent of geographic location
Node Activities Creating a National Innovation Network
Lessons Learned
What Have We Learned? • Instructors – “Process” versus “Consulting” • “Adjunct Faculty” versus “Core” Teaching Team • Emotional Issues • Under-Performers versus High Performers • Mentor Pool as a National Resource • Past faculty recipients encouraging junior faculty participation • Scale-up: Local (NSF) and national inter-governmental coordination • Students report employability is enhanced by their participation in I-
Corps™ • Influence of I-Corps™ on careers • Others?
Curriculum Delivery &
Refinement (Nodes)
Customer Discovery
(Teams/Nodes)
Business Model
Canvasses (Teams)
Curriculum Delivery Oversight + Team, Teaching and Venue Oversight + Counseling/Advising Breakout Sessions + Tracking WebEx and Launch Pad Central + Lessons Learned + … it’s all about maintaining the consistency and quality of the educational experience.
Mentor Sessions
EL Sessions
PI Sessions
Oversight of “NSF I-Corps branding” is essential …
Success Stories
New way to organize, browse and share your photos.
Acquired by Dropbox!
Developed software to annotate a large number of images quickly and accurately
Combining human input with an annotation algorithm Facilitate image analysis
Founders Serge Belongie Professor at UC San Diego Peter Welinder Award-winning research in computer vision, machine learning and crowdsourcing. Boris Babenko Co-founder of @Anchovi Labs, Inc.
CISE Lineage
… Bio-Adhesive Alliance was selected as the $25,000 grand prize winner. The start-up company is a spin-out from NC A&T State University that has developed an innovative technology to produce liquid asphalt from swine manure. According to the company, “This technology provides a sustainable and cost-effective solution to swine manure treatment while reducing pavement construction and maintenance cost.” The Bio-Adhesive Alliance team completed the National Science Foundation’s commercialization program known as I-Corps.
Bio-Adhesive Alliance
ENG Lineage
The MadiDrop: A Novel Silver-Ceramic Tablet for Household-Level Water Purification
• A silver-impregnated porous ceramic tablet for household-level (point-of-use) water purification
• 103 customer discovery interviews
• Consumer segments ranging from large aid agencies to the hiker/camper market
• In Summer 2013, began its first field study on the technology in Limpopo Province, South Africa, enrolling 80 households
• A pilot production facility in Charlottesville, Virginia
ENG Lineage
“Smart and yummy educational animations, mini–games, and interactive tools that help mid-school learners better understand math concepts.” New Mexico State University
EHR Lineage
I-Corps: The Charge Tracker (University of Michigan Ann Arbor) – AGS/GEO Lineage
They started I-Corps with….
Nilton Harvey
Dave Gus
They ended I-Corps with….. a business
a team… a technology… The Charge TrackerTM capable of locating electric charge buildup on objects located tens of feet away from it.
$1.6 Million funding from NASA and NSF since June 2007
and a lot of ideas…
R.Montelli Ph.D., September 23, 2013
…and the startup received a microloan from the Michigan Microloan Fund Program ($50k), and received a NSF-SBIR Phase I ($150k)
Stephen DiMagno's fundamental research in chemistry has led to developing a new way to make imaging agents for staging and managing certain cancers, including pediatric cancers, cardiac disease, as well as various neurological disorders, like Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. University of Nebraska - Lincoln Department of Chemistry
Researcher founds company that manufactures molecules that become imaging
agents for managing cancer, cardiac disease and neurological disorders.
MPS Lineage
What is new in I-Corps™?
What is I-Corps L? I-Corps L: Innovation Corps for Learning Question: Can the I-Corps™ course designed for start-up technological innovations help propagate scalable and sustainable learning innovations in the engineering education ecosystem? Goals: • Propagate scalability and sustainability of learning innovations initially
funded by NSF grants • Foster an entrepreneurial mindset within the education community to
impact the way innovations are designed and implemented
33 I-Corps L Timeline
Example of Sustaining & Scaling Success
A Project that is a Program:
Thank You !
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