June 2012

I-Corps course information and materials


 


I-Corps is a National Science Foundation initiative to assess the readiness of emerging technology concepts for transitioning into valuable new products through a public-private partnership. 



In collaboration with the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA), NSF offers select participants from US academic laboratories the opportunity to participate in a special, accelerated version of Stanford University's Lean LaunchPad course. 



The course engages participants in moving products out of the lab and into the market, through talking to customers, partners and competitors and encountering the chaos and uncertainty of creating successful innovations.



Questions? Email icorps@nciia.org.

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JUL-AUG BAY AREA I-CORPS COURSE
UCSF (kick-off)
& UC Berkeley (closing)
Bay area, CA

Kick-off workshop:
July 7-10

Online classes:
Mondays, 1-4 pm ET
July 15, 22, 29, Aug 6 and 13

Final workshop: Aug 22-23

Syllabus (coming soon)
July At-a-glance Schedule (coming soon)
July Kick-off Logistics (coming soon)
August At-a-glance Schedule (coming soon)
August Closing Logistics (coming soon)

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OCT-NOV NYC AREA I-CORPS COURSE
New York City, NY

Kick-off workshop:
Oct 6-9

Online classes: 
Tuesdays, 1-4 EST
Oct 15, 22, 29, Nov 5 and 12

Closing workshop:
Nov 18-19

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OCT-DEC ATLANTA I-CORPS COURSE
Georgia Tech University
Atlanta, GA

Kick-off workshop:
Oct 15-18

Online classes: 
Wednesdays, 1-4 EST
Oct 23, 30, Nov 6, 13 and 20

Closing workshop:
Dec 3-4

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I-CORPS COURSE TEXTS AND TOOLS
(textbooks are included in your registration fee and mailed to the PI for distribution to the team)

The Startup Owners Manual

Business Model Generation

Business Model Canvas

Giff Constable, "12 Tips for Early Customer Development Interviews"

Steve Blank, "What’s a Startup? First Principles"

Steve Blank, "Make No Little Plans – Defining the Scalable Startup"

Steve Blank, "A Startup is Not a Smaller Version of a Large Company"

Conducting Customer Discovery Interviews

LaunchPad Central

 

 

 

 

Business canvas
I-Corps teams are asked to come to the I-Corps course having already completed a business canvas. This video was created by Alexander Osterwalder, co-author of Business Model Generation.


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Sample Presentations and Videos

I-Corps Teams will conclude the course by preparing a final Lessons Learned Presentation (10 minutes), a 2-minute Lessons Learned Video and a 1-minute Technical Video.  Below are samples from two alumni teams of our January-March session in Arlington.

Team 162:  Rapisense
Final Lessons Learned Presentation
Two-minute Lessons Learned Video
One-minute Technical Video

Team 152:  BioGel
Final Lessons Learned Presentation
Two-minute Lessons Learned Video
One-minute Technical Video
 

 

  

 

 

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. 1220692, 1227296, 1239638, 1261806

Course Information and Materials

Sealed Air and Ecovative to accelerate commercialization of packaging material

Submitted by tim on Fri, 06/22/2012 - 08:46

Sealed Air Corporation and Ecovative Design are working to accelerate the production, sales and distribution of Ecovative's EcoCradle Mushroom Packaging, an environmentally responsible packaging material made from agricultural byproducts and mycelium.

As part of the agreement, Sealed Air will be the exclusive licensee of EcoCradle in North America for protective packaging applications. Sealed Air plans to begin offering the new products immediately.

Ecovative began developing environmentally friendly insulation materials with this 2007 E-Team grant.

Jerry Engel on "Entrepreneurship for the 99%"

Submitted by tim on Tue, 06/05/2012 - 14:00

Jerry Engel recently discussed the upcoming Lean LaunchPad Educators Program and how small businesses--Main Street--can benefit from 21st century entrepreneurship techniques. A guest blogger on Steve Blank's blog, Jerry is the Faculty Director of the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps and the Founding Faculty Director of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley.