“Before the program, we had invented a technology but did not have a clear path to commercialization. The program helped us tremendously on many aspects.”

Amissi Sadiki and Sunny Zhou

Enter an advanced stage of Northeastern University’s IDEA incubator, which provides additional financial and mentor support.

“For someone with a technical background, the framing of business concepts in a scientific way made new concepts easy to learn quickly, and the program’s emphasis on conducting direct customer discovery really transformed the experience from a commercialization class; to real business development experience.”

Benjamin Gincley

Apply with significantly increased chances for approval to Northeastern University’s Alpha Fund program as well as the Center for Research Innovation’s Spark Fund which both provide additional funding ranging from $5-$50k with potential for additional future funds.

“Engineers, scientists, and financial analysts enter, innovation entrepreneurs emerge! The I-Corps mentors guide, but we also learn and grow as well. We feel like we are setting the tops spinning who will improve the world; and we are definitely having a lot of fun sharing what we love.”

James L. Sherley, M.D., Ph.D.

Develop a product, service, or system design targeted to customers, for technology-intensive applications.

“This program taught us the significance of customer discovery, user input, and market validation early in the product development process. Through meaningful interviews and lessons we have an informed commercialization path for our next phase of work.”

Emily Man

Build NSF lineage for future NSF/NIH funding opportunities apply with improved chances of success.

The Northeastern University National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps Site Program is designed to help scientists and engineers begin the process of commercializing STEM-related research and innovation.

APPLY NOW!

Training

The site program consists of 6 virtual sessions focused on customer discovery and solution design methods.

Mentoring

Industry Mentors from our Venture Mentoring Network and Health Sciences Entrepreneurs are assigned to venture teams to aid in training and applying research and design methods.

Funding

Venture teams receive up to $3K per venture team to support any costs associated with customer discovery and prototyping.

Photos by Matthew Modoono & Chloë Ellingson

VENTURE TEAMS WILL LEARN AND APPLY METHODS TO:

Learn to interview target users and buyers.

Define markets, customers, and primary use cases.

Create a Minimal Viable Product and position against competitors.

Identify the best commercial pathways for their innovation.

Develop an initial business model.

Get comfortable with the language of business.

OUR I-CORPS TEAM

Marc Meyer

Managing Director

Center for Entrepreneurship Education

Paul Grazewski

Mentor Coordinator

I-Corps Site Program

John Tremblay

Instructor

I-Corps Site Program

“The Venture Mentoring Network is able to tap into a very deep pool of capabilities and experiences in our mentors in order to accelerate the learning process for our NSF I-Corps teams. I find it very rewarding to see how the mentoring team works in a very collaborative fashion to increase the probability of success and shorten the time to market for our I Corps projects.”

– PAUL GRAZEWSKI, MENTOR COORDINATOR, I-CORPS SITE PROGRAM