What is NSF I-Corps?
The National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (NSF I-Corps) program uses experiential education to help researchers gain valuable insight into entrepreneurship, including how to start a business and face current industry challenges.
The program helps researchers of diverse backgrounds bring their scientific and engineering discoveries to the marketplace as commercial ventures that spur economic growth and narrow long-standing racial and gender disparities in the STEM workforce.
UAlbany’s NSF I-Corps program can help you:
- Explore the market need for your research
- Define the broader impacts of your work
- Strengthen your next grant application’s commercialization plan
The University at Albany is proud to be a part of the New York Region I-Corps Hub.
Who can participate in I-Corps?
I-Corps offers training and guidance to students, researchers, faculty and entrepreneurs looking to progress existing scientific or engineering research into a business venture.
Startup ideas can originate from funded or unfunded research, student work, or institutional or industrial projects.
How does I-Corps work?
This highly interactive course begins with two kickoff sessions where participants learn how to:
- Identify their top customer segments and the benefits they value
- Form testable hypotheses about their potential customers and their value propositions
- Find and effectively interview customers to make data driven decisions about their venture
During the weeks that follow the kickoff, teams speak with at least 20 potential customers. Teams also have two mandatory office hour consultations with instructors to check-in, share progress and receive coaching.
The program concludes with a lessons learned report-out where teams present what they have learned, receive additional coaching and learn about their options for moving forward with their ideas.
After completing the course, teams may be eligible to apply to the National I-Corps Teams Program and receive up to $50,000 to support their participation, including expenses related to conducting further customer discovery.
Join Our Next Cohort
This is a free, 3.5-week course held at various times throughout the year.
apply
Eligibility
Individuals and teams must be working on a project based on new, innovative and differentiating technology that could be a candidate for a future proposal to the federal non-dilutive funding program for small business technology development, including the Small Business Innovative Research and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) programs.
Individuals and teams must also be either current faculty, postdocs, students or staff at any university in the United States or other individuals working on serious STEM-related technology.
Information Sessions
Information sessions are offered on the first Tuesday of every month and are held at noon on Zoom.
Registration is required. Register to attend an information session.
Application
By enrolling in the program, you agree to fulfill attendance requirements for all workshops and office hour sessions and to complete all assignments. The course will require about 20 to 40 total hours of effort over a four-week period.
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis. Apply now!
Our next cohort will start in April 2024.
Spring 2024 Schedule
Week 1:
- Kick-off Meeting, Day 1: 5 to 8 p.m. April 3, 2024 (3 hours)
- Kick-off Meeting, Day 2: 5 to 6:30 p.m. April 4, 2024 (1.5 hours)
Week 2 & 3:
- Interviews: Teams will complete interviews with potential customers.
- One-on-one Meetings: Two 20-minute meetings will be scheduled with each team.
Week 4:
- Interviews: Teams will complete additional interviews with potential customers.
- Lessons Learned Workshop: 5 to 7:30 p.m. April 26, 2024
Spring 2024 Instructors
Julia Byrd and Micah Kotch will teach the Spring 2024 I-Corps at UAlbany cohort.
About Julia Byrd
Julia Byrd’s deep background in customer discovery and program development helps businesses craft challenge statements with more initial validation behind the problem.
Previously, Julia worked at Columbia University as the Associate Director of NYSERDA’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence program and PowerBridgeNY — both programs designed to help cleantech startups in New York access the capital, expertise, technology, and talent needed to maturate from ideate to scale.
On top of her experience building and evolving PowerBridgeNY — a first-of-its-kind cleantech proof-of-concept center — she founded Byrd Consulting LLC, through which she helped national clients design, launch, and iterate on entrepreneurial programs based on lean startup methodology.
Julia serves as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, an Instructor with the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps Program, a mentor for Cleantech Open, an Advisory Board member for V1 Studio, and an Accountability Board member for Scale for ClimateTech. She is an Ideate Program Lead at Mach49, a venture growth firm.
She received an MS in sustainability management from Columbia University and a BA in environmental studies and Russian language and literature from George Washington University. In her free time, Julia is a passionate aerialist, experienced on apparatuses including pole, lyra, and trapeze.
About Micah Kotch
Micah Kotch is a core national faculty member for the National Science Foundation’s I-CORPS program which helps commercialize federally funded research and ‘tough tech.’
Previously, Micah served as Strategic Advisor for Innovation at NYSERDA where he led NY Prize; a $40M community microgrid initiative focused on energy resilience and evolution of the utility business model.
At the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, Micah served as Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, where he launched NYC’s first sponsored tech incubator and the Urban Future Lab – helping emerging companies capitalize on the clean energy transition.
Micah graduated Colgate University with a degree in China studies and started his first company putting games on phones in China in 1998. He is a Brooklyn native (where he lives with his family) and a proud board member for Green City Force, an Americorps program that engages young adults from low-income communities in national service related to the environment.
Micah is a Next City Vanguard Fellow, a member of the BMW Foundation Responsible Leaders Network and a partner at Blackthorn Ventures.
Questions? Please contact Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program Director Kelly Reardon-Sleicher at [email protected].