Are you a UW student, faculty or staff member who may be on to something and want
to test the commercial potential of your idea? Do you dream of starting a company sometime in the future? If your answers are yes, then the NSF I-Corps program may be right for you.
WHAT IS IT?
The National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) is
a federally funded program to accelerate projects that are ready
to move toward commercialization. The collaborative innovation
hub at UW, CoMotion® secured an NSF grant to establish the
CoMotion I-Corps Site, which issues approximately 30 awards per
year to fund customer discovery, running two cohorts per year.
The program has two tracks: a general track powered by
CoMotion Innovation Training, and a biomedical track powered
by the Washington Entrepreneurial Research Evaluation and
Commercialization Hub (WE-REACH).
WHAT YOU GET FROM THE PROGRAM
• A great preparation to apply for gap funding, business plan
competitions, and grants allowing you to develop your project.
• Get a chance at receiving $2500 for travel to perform
customer and stakeholder interviews.
• Establish NSF lineage to seek further NSF funding.
• Expand your network.
Of note: There are no intellectual property obligations tied to
this grant.
PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS
• Designed for UW affiliated teams and individuals ready to test
their business hypotheses with customers and stakeholders.
• Welcomes those who just want to learn, as well as those ready to
follow the rigorous I-Corps program to get monetary awards and
qualify for further NSF funding.
• Mini-grants given based on progress and demonstrated
commitment to taking projects to market.
• Mini-grants seekers must attend the whole program and perform
five weekly customer interviews.
• Mini-grant awardees will be asked for a final written report to justify
the use of the funds to the NSF.
PROGRAM IMPACT
• 120+ teams have participated in the past
• $40+ million raised by alumni
“The I-CORPS training was particularly useful. Learning the
language of business, customer discovery techniques, and learning
the right questions to ask about the product, customers and
marketing were of great value.”
Summer/Fall Cohort
Registration closes: June 5, 2020 (11:59 PM PDT)
Kick-off workshop: June 23, 2020 or June 24, 2020
General Bootcamp track meets June 30-July 21 on Tuesdays (9-11
AM PDT)
Biomedical Bootcamp track meets July 2-23 on Thursdays (2-4 PM
PDT)
Final reports due: 2nd Monday in December
For more information, please click here.
For registration, please click here.
