October 2012

The National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance has operated for 16 years at the convergence of entrepreneurship education and university innovation. We have played important roles in the development of courses and programs throughout university STEM disciplines through our grants program for faculty educators and with our annual conference. We are nationally known for our student E-Team program that funds university undergraduate and graduate student innovators with critical proof of concept support. We welcome inquires about this program from both student and faculty-student teams.

We have been working to make a more concerted effort to reach out to faculty in the broadly characterized “cleantech” sector and explore how our faculty and students grants programs and our other initiatives can help improve the teaching of innovation and entrepreneurship and support commercialization outcomes.

Some of the work that we have been doing in this field is with the Center for Sustainable Materials Chemistry, based in Oregon at Oregon State and University of Oregon but inclusive of several other notable institutions including Washington University St. Louis and Rutgers University. For this center, we are providing our “Lens of the Market” and “InnovationLab” programs to assist faculty and graduate students in understanding research to innovation to commercialization pathways.

As a research faculty you may also be interested in having us provide such programs on your campus.

For faculty interested in developing courses and programs in technology innovation and entrepreneurship, we have a grants program that provides up to $50,000 in seed grants to initiate such programs. You may also be interested in some of our other programs, such as our Lean LaunchPad Educators Program.

For cleantech ventures we have recently initiated a new offering with Village Capital and our VentureWell program to provide support and funding for early stage ventures emerging from the university environment, as well as other early stage cleantech ventures.

Finally, our annual conference is perhaps the best attended meeting for faculty from a science and engineering background to learn about best practices for developing courses and programs in technology innovation. The conference takes place March 22-23, 2013 in Washington, D.C. We’ll post here soon additional information about how you as a faculty member in a cleantech related discipline might gain particular benefit from the program.

In order to apply for NCIIA grants and attend events at a reduced cost, you need to become a member. Students and faculty from member institutions are welcome to:

• Apply for NCIIA grants.
• Attend NCIIA-sponsored events for a reduced fee.
• Access free or reduced-fee services from our resource partners.
• Tap into a network of like-minded professionals to share ideas and educational strategies.
  

The last few years have seen a dramatic expansion in the number of accelerator programs and exponential rise in those applying to these programs. This has led to several questions about this burgeoning industry of innovation. Is it sustainable? What are the limits on expansion and what is the best method to grow? Finally, what makes a “good” accelerator and as an applicant what should you look for in a program?
 
Hear from four different programs as they offer their views this Thursday, October 18 at Venture Café. Andrew Foote from Village Capital, our partner in the Village Capital/VentureWell - Boston program will join Melissa Withers from BetaSpring, Ateet Adhikari from Healthbox, and Jeremy Bersin from MassChallenge in a roundtable moderated by Mike Norman founder of WeFunder.

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