 Written by Nick Glavan We kicked off yet another cohort of I-Corps last Friday, and our 10-year anniversary of our I-Corps program at University of Akron is just around the corner. I wanted to take some time in this week’s blog to talk about a pivotal role on many of our I-Corps teams – the faculty Academic Lead – and why faculty should consider being an active member in our program. This one is for all university faculty, and especially those who want their students to develop in-demand skillsets and have life changing experiences.  As most of you who read our weekly blogs know, I-Corps is a 7-session program that guides students, faculty, entrepreneurs, and their mentors through the basics of customer discovery. Our cohorts at Akron are made of two types of teams: university-based teams and community-based teams. A university-based team is typically made of three distinct team members: an Entrepreneurial Lead (usually a student), an Industry Mentor, and an Academic Lead. Academic Leads are the faculty members on their I-Corps team. Often, the innovation being investigated for commercial potential in I-Corps comes from the faculty’s research lab. In many cases, the faculty member has spent significant time experimenting and developing a novel technology advancement that has led to a new intellectual property discovery. Their next step is to disclose their new discovery to their university’s technology transfer office, who can help them file protections on it.  So where does I-Corps come in? In a lot of cases, the university’s technology transfer office is faced with the decision: should they file for a patent on this new invention that their faculty found, or not? Filing for protection can get expensive quickly and many universities have budget limitations where only the best innovations will be patented. If the invention has commercial potential and could one day be licensed(sold) to customers, then patenting the innovation is the right move. But how can they predict that?
By investigating the commercial potential in I-Corps, of course! In I-Corps, faculty Academic Leads and their teams will interview their potential future customers. The I-Corps team will uncover whether these customers have a real pain point that can be solved by using the innovation. Learning what problems their customers struggle with and what the customers’ ideal solution should include also helps the faculty to plan further technology development activities to carry out in the lab. And that’s just one benefit of collecting this validation data from interviewing customers. The connections made through these interviews could also lead to real industry partnerships that can help speed up the development and testing of the innovation. Once a team completes the local level of I-Corps at Akron, they receive a $1,000 grant to further their customer connection efforts. They’ll then be eligible to participate in a national level of I-Corps which comes with a $50,000 grant for further customer discovery. Not to mention, having this validated proof that customers have a problem and desire a solution that aligns with your technology is a *key* criteria for many funding applications like NSF’s SBIR and PFI grant opportunities. So, by participating in I-Corps and collecting validation data, you can set yourself up for success and potentially bring more research grant dollars to your lab group to pay for continued experiments and discoveries! But my favorite element of faculty participating in I-Corps is the way it brings a change to their students’ lives. When students work together with their faculty advisor on an I-Corps team, they get to witness the practical applications of their work from the lab. Students develop leadership and communication skills while working hands-on with industry stakeholders. They learn about the overlap of their STEM field and the business potential their innovations possess. And when students see the support of a faculty member attending I-Corps meetings and reviewing deliverables in the program, they put their best foot forward in advancing the business case and technology development for their innovation. It’s 7-weeks of intense work, but it’s totally worth the effort to develop the professional skills that will take them further in their careers. So, if you are a faculty member looking to give your students an amazing professional development experience, patent your research, or bring some grant funding to your lab, definitely consider applying for our next I-Corps cohort!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
RSS Feed