Virginia Tech I-Corps
VIRGINIA TECH I-CORPS PROGRAM
As Virginia Tech faculty members and graduate students, our community has access to one of the nation’s leading innovation programs. The National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps program can help you ascertain the commercial potential of your team’s innovation or invention while assisting you in developing business skills and broadening your professional network.
How can the Virginia Tech I-Corps short course help you?
INNOVATE
Explore taking new technology to the marketplace.
LEARN
Get entrepreneurial training, support, and learn how to apply for $50,000
SUCCEED
Increase chances of receiving an SBIR/STTR award
Program Details
The I-Corps program, funded by the National Science Foundation, offers workshops and mentorship to help scientific researchers become entrepreneurs. The program provides funding for teams to validate their customer market so they can confidently choose whether to pursue commercialization and prepare to apply for SBIR funding.
1) Short Course: Regional
At Virginia Tech, our regional course prepares your team to apply to the national program in a unique fashion. Not only do we introduce you to the Business Model Canvas and its application as well as customer discovery, we help you learn how to analyze the data you are gathering from potential customers and uncover its meaning for your startup.p
- Workshops on business model and customer discovery
- Taught by successful entrepreneurs using Lean Launchpad methodology
- 2 half-day sessions to “kick off” and half-day “closing workshop”
- Weekly 90-minute online coaching sessions
- Conduct 30 customer discovery interviews
- Become eligible for national I-Corps Teams
2) I-Corps Teams: National
I-Corps Teams is a nation-wide program composed of academic researchers, student entrepreneurs and business mentors that participate in rigorous curriculum administered through on-site activities and via online instruction.
- 7-week national cohort for top teams from across the US (Offered 16x per year)
- $25-50k to do 100+ customer discovery interviews anywhere you need to go
- Personalized instruction and team mentoring from successful entrepreneurs
- 3-day in-person “Kickoff” workshop, 6 weeks to conduct interviews; 90-minute weekly report ins; and 2-day “Lessons Learned” workshop
- Decide whether to pursue commercialization
- Identify next steps including SBIR application
What is NSF's I-Corps Program?
The National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program is designed to take scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs of every technical background beyond the campus labs and classrooms and toward commercialization. Since I-Corps’ initial launch with NSF, it has been adopted and applied by NIH, NASA, DOD, DHS, and many other government entities as well as many private companies.
Virginia Tech is a member of the I-Corps Mid-Atlantic Hub, offering regional short courses that prepare teams to both apply for and participate in the national program. All of the methodologies taught shift thinking and approaches for not only tech translation but research and teaching methods as well.
The NSF I-Corps program began in 2011 and is focused on risk reduction in relationship to tech transition through the application of customer discovery and business intelligence gathering and mentoring by experienced industry business leaders. Instructors are entrepreneurs in their own right and coach scientists on evidenced-based entrepreneurship and how to develop a repeatable, scalable business model.
Thousands of faculty and students have employed the program - and its $50,000 grant - to create winning business decisions, raise millions of dollars in funding and launch companies or license IP.
Upcoming Regional Short Courses with the I-Corps Mid-Atlantic Hub
Please click the following link to view upcoming programs offered by members of the I-Corps Mid-Atlantic Hub: Upcoming Courses
Lisa Garcia
I-Corps Principal Lead and Faculty
Virginia Tech
Jack Lesko
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Virginia Tech
Lindsey Smith
Program Manager, DC I-Corps
Virginia Tech
Mike Abbott
Managing Director and Owner
Cambrian Design and Development LLC and
Industrial Biodynamics LLC
TESTIMONIALS
Rafael Davalos, Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics (BEAM), Virginia Tech
"It is incredible how much insight you gain in such a short amount of time."
Tom Martin, Professor & Bradley Faculty Fellow of Education
“…I-Corps teaches you …to always build products with their user/customer in mind. Data and numbers can only tell you so much …speaking with your customers helps fill …critical gaps."
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Patrick Acker, Chief Operating Officer, ECIMED, LLC
"I-Corps has enabled me to best help my clients systematically identify and optimize customer value delivery..""
VIRGINIA TECH ENTREPRENEURIAL RESOURCES
Proof of Concept Program
LAUNCH: Center for New Ventures serves the Virginia Tech research community. Focused on transitioning discoveries to market through new venture creation where promising new technologies can generate value to a broad range of stakeholders with resources like the newly launched Proof-of-Concept (POC) Program that includes non-dilutive grant funding and early stage commercialization resources to our Virginia Tech research community. → LEARN MORE
Purposeful, positive change to society is not possible without the cultivation of thoughtful leaders and enterprising minds. Our mission is to do just this, by inspiring and preparing students to turn their passion and ideas into action.
Entrepreneurship Club (E-Club) brings together the most creative and action-orientated students to build world changing ideas. The E-Club Clubhouse has the power to transform VT startups— enabling student entrepreneurs to do their best work.
Inspires and empowers Virginia Tech students to turn their passion, purpose, and ideas into action. The portfolio of programs provides any Hokie, from any major and any year the opportunity to engage in all phases of the entrepreneurship and new venture development process.
REGIONAL ENTREPRENEUR RESOURCES
RAMP is a 12-week regional accelerator located in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. We want to help you learn how to grow your startup. RAMP offers 12-weeks to work on your business with people who care about your success.
Roanoke Blacksburg Technology Council (RBTC) is a member-driven association working to promote the growth of the Roanoke-Blacksburg technology community. Membership ranges from emerging technology firms to the largest employers in the region.
Provides business formation and growth support services to the unique Virginia Tech technology park communities in Blacksburg and Newport News, Virginia.
The New River and Roanoke Valleys of Virginia provide an environment where businesses in the innovation economy can launch, grow, and thrive.
Roanoke CoLab provides all of the basics of your office needs in one, easy, affordable package.
We’re working together to build, utilize, and sustain the national innovation ecosystem
Virginia Tech is a member of the NSF I-Corps Mid-Atlantic Hub. The hub, along with all other I-Corps Hubs across the country, work together to develop and sustain innovation in the U.S. Other members of the Mid-Atlantic Hub include Johns Hopkins University, The University of Maryland, George Washington University, Penn State, NC State University, and more.
