10Jul
19Jun
Starting Your Entrepreneurial Journey with NSF I-Corps
By Dennis Abremski, Executive Director, Institute for the Global Entrepreneur (IGE), Jacobs School of Engineering, and NSF I-Corps Hub: Desert and Pacific Region Project Director, University of California San Diego If you are a potential startup founder and new to the NSF I-Corps™ program, please read on. I hope this post will spark your interest and encourage you to learn more. If you are familiar with I-Corps, I hope you can relate to what follows and recommend this post as an interesting take on a program that has positively impacted the lives of many tech entrepreneurs. I oversee an NSF I-Corps program at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), developed over 10 years ago within the Jacobs School of Engineering. We are proud to be a part of the NSF I-Corps Hub: Desert and Pacific Region, led by Arizona State University and seven other collaborating universities in Arizona, California, Idaho, Hawai’i, and Nevada. I want to start with a short story… As I was driving to campus last week, it dawned on me that I was on the same section of the freeway that years ago, I had answered a pivotal phone call. Before I worked at UCSD, I was a partner in a healthcare tech accelerator. In my spare time (yes, that’s a joke), I volunteered as an I-Corps industry mentor. Our team was developing advanced baby monitors for both consumer and clinical applications. During said call, I talked to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) nurse about how she performed her duties...
22May
From Classroom to Marketplace: Uniting Academic Research with Student Entrepreneurial Aspirations
By Archibald Harner, Assistant Vice President, Research Administration, and NSF I-Corps Hub: Desert and Pacific Region Project Director, University of Idaho The University of Idaho is pioneering an innovative approach with the launch of an Idea Fair, a platform where professors share their groundbreaking research-driven ideas directly to students. Students are given the opportunity to select which projects they want to work on advancing with the faculty member. This model seeks to foster collaboration between students and academic inventors, acting as a catalyst for entrepreneurial development, including an opportunity to participate in the NSF Regional I-Corps Program, while having a real-world impact. Key Features and Benefits of the Idea Fair: Professor Presentations: Professors present their research innovations to a group of students in a for-credit entrepreneurship class. Student Engagement: Students explore and select the ideas they are most passionate about, which they will champion in their class. Team Formation: Students form teams around these selected ideas, preparing to compete in various pitch competitions and other entrepreneurial contests. Skill Development: This engagement with cutting-edge research equips students with invaluable practical entrepreneurship skills and insights into the commercial potential of innovative technologies. Collaboration and Growth: Throughout this process, students work closely with the faculty inventors. This collaboration is crucial not only for helping the inventors refine the technology but also for preparing students to potentially serve as the entrepreneurial leads in the regional NSF I-Corps program, alongside the inventors, who would serve as technical leads. Participation in the NSF I-Corps program provides students and faculty with structured support to transform...
30Apr
Fail Fast: Companies That Pivoted After I-Corps Customer Discovery
By Tyler McCusker, Commercialization Network Coordinator at Tech Launch Arizona The University Of Arizona At the heart of NSF I-Corps is a powerful principle: challenge your biases and assumptions about the validity of your idea. Talk to customers, listen deeply, and be willing to let go of your original beliefs. Through your I-Corps-trained listening, you will start to identify patterns in the responses that can be not only informative; they can be transformational. Often, an entrepreneur enters I-Corps laser-focused on their “brilliant idea,” only to realize halfway through training that customers don’t share the same enthusiasm or even experience the same problem. Arriving at this point is by no means a dead end. It’s an opportunity. Some of the most successful ventures are those that had the courage to pivot early – sometimes, more than once. Steve Blank, one of the architects of the Lean Startup movement and the I-Corps program itself, defines a pivot as “a substantive change to one or more of the nine boxes on the business model canvas.” You’re not just tweaking your idea haphazardly; you’re changing direction based on what the market is telling you. A few types of pivots may include: Customer Segment Pivot: You discovered a different group of people who actually need your solution. Problem Pivot: You were solving a problem that didn’t really exist (or wasn’t painful enough). Technology Pivot: Your tech is great … but better suited for a totally different use case. One core idea behind I-Corps is to reduce the risk of building something nobody wants. It’s better...
23Apr
Healing chronic wounds: UH Mānoa scientists lead innovation
A team from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, led by Associate Professor Ellinor Haglund and graduate student Ivy Vo, has received an NSF I-Corps grant to advance their innovative wound healing technology, WoundWhiz. With support from industry mentor Nathan Friedman and the NSF I-Corps program, the team is working to bring their solution to the healthcare market. Read full article
17Apr
2024 Top 100 US Universities Announced by the National Academy of Inventors
Three institutions from the NSF I-Corps Hub: Desert and Pacific Region were named to the National Academy of Inventors’ 2024 list of Top 100 U.S. Universities Granted Utility Patents: UC San Diego (part of the Regents of the University of California) ranked #2, Arizona State University ranked #9, and the University of Arizona ranked #31. The full list of ranked universities is available in the article below. Read full article
26Mar
Top 5 Lessons Learned from Participating in NSF I-Corps
By Cristy Salanga, Patent Manager, and I-Corps Program Director Northern Arizona University Embarking on the NSF I-Corps journey is an eye-opening experience for researchers and entrepreneurs alike. The program pushes participants to step out of their comfort zones, engage with real customers, and rethink how they approach innovation. Here are five key lessons learned from participating in NSF I-Corps: 1. Customers Are Your Compass One of the biggest takeaways from I-Corps is that your customers—not your assumptions—should guide your decisions. You may start a course thinking you know what your customers need, but many times, this assumption is off base from their true problems and needs. Through customer discovery interviews, you’ll learn what your target customer truly values, helping you align your product with their needs. 2. Be Ready to Pivot Innovation rarely follows a straight line. Many participants enter the course with a clear idea of their product’s purpose, only to discover that their initial assumptions of who would buy in to their solution were off target. I-Corps teaches you to embrace feedback and pivot toward better opportunities. 3. Feeling Uncomfortable Means You’re Doing It Right Customer discovery is a rewarding and insightful process, but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy journey! Reaching out to initiate conversations and talking to strangers can be daunting, and fortunately, it gets easier the more you do it! If you are feeling uncomfortable, you’re doing it right and getting out of your comfort zone. The program instills a mindset of constant learning and iteration, encouraging participants to remain curious, adaptive, and customer-focused...
13Mar
Triton Alumni Shine on 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 List
UC San Diego alumnus Sai Zhou is pushing the boundaries of med tech innovation. A former I-Corps participant and founder of CircuCare Inc., Zhou is revolutionizing patient care with a hands-free, wearable ultrasound device for continuous cardiovascular imaging. His entrepreneurial journey, shaped by UC San Diego’s Institute for the Global Entrepreneur, has earned him a spot on the 2025 Forbes 30 Under 30 Science list. Read more about how Zhou is transforming research into real-world impact. Read full article
17Feb
Customer Discovery: The Core of NSF I-Corps
Cristy Salanga, Patent Manager, and I-Corps Program Director Northern Arizona University Entrepreneurs and innovators often fall into a common trap: assuming they know what their customers want. While passion and conviction are essential, they can sometimes blind us to the realities of the market. That’s where customer discovery comes in. Whether you're thinking about developing a new technology or launching a niche product, customer discovery can mean the difference between success and failure. Here, we’ll explore what customer discovery is, why it’s crucial, and how NSF I-Corps helps teams master this critical skill. What is Customer Discovery? At its heart, customer discovery is a process of validating your assumptions about the market, your customers, and their problems. It involves directly engaging with potential customers to understand their needs, pain points, and decision-making processes in the use and adoption of new products (or services). Rather than building a product based on your own assumptions, customer discovery ensures you’re solving a real problem for a specific customer. The process is rooted in the lean startup methodology, which emphasizes iterating based on feedback rather than following a plan based on just what you think. Why is Customer Discovery Important? Avoid Wasting Resources: Building a product or service without validating your assumptions about the problem, the scope and scale of the problem you purport to solve and for whom, and market realities can be expensive and time-consuming. Customer discovery helps you refine your idea before committing significant resources. Understand Customer Needs: Talking to potential customers reveals their true problems and priorities, often uncovering...
13Feb