Enroll in the University of Iowa April 2024 I-Corps workshop organized by the John Pappajohn Entrepreneur Center (JPEC) if you wish to turn your research into practical real-world applications. This virtual workshop, lasting four weeks and offered free of charge, follows proven strategies

for entrepreneurial success. It is available to grad students, research faculty, and staff. With the guidance of NSF I-Corps trained instructors and the JPEC Mentors, participants will gain a comprehensive understanding of their target customers and market landscape. This workshop will give participants an introduction to the Lean Launchpad methodology and familiarize them with the Business Model Canvas and customer discovery. At the conclusion of the program, participants are encouraged to apply for the national level with the NSF I-Corps program where you can be eligible to be awarded up to $50,000 in funding.

Dates: April 1, April 8, April 15, April 22

What: NSF I-Corps – virtually held over Zoom

Time: 6-8 p.m. CT

Enroll in the Summer 2024 University of Iowa I-Corps workshop organized by the John Pappajohn Entrepreneur Center (JPEC) if you wish to turn your research into practical real-world applications. This virtual workshop, lasting four weeks and offered free of charge, follows proven strategies

for entrepreneurial success. It is available to grad students, research faculty, and staff. With the guidance of NSF I-Corps trained instructors and the JPEC Mentors, participants will gain a comprehensive understanding of their target customers and market landscape. This workshop will give participants an introduction to the Lean Launchpad methodology and familiarize them with the Business Model Canvas and customer discovery. At the conclusion of the program, participants are encouraged to apply for the national level with the NSF I-Corps program where you can be eligible to be awarded up to $50,000 in funding.

Held virtually over Zoom

Dates: Dates: June 27, July 11, 18, 25, and Aug 1

Time: 10:00AM-12:00PM CT

Could your idea eventually become a product or a service? Are you interested in bringing new perspectives to your research program? Do you want to consider starting a business? Join us for Nebraska I-Corps, a campus entrepreneurship training program led by NUtech Ventures.

Through the Lean Launch method, you'll learn about value propositions, stakeholder ecosystems, interviewing prospective customers, and more. You’ll get to interview people in your field and learn which problems are important to them — and then consider what that means for your solution.

This seven-week program includes large group training sessions taught by NSF I-Corps-trained coaches, featuring interactive course content and practice in small groups. You’ll also take part in one-on-one office hours with trained facilitators from various entrepreneurship ecosystem resource providers, such as NUtech Ventures, UNL Extension, and the Nebraska Business Development Center (NBDC).

The free, non-credit training program is open to all faculty, staff and students at UNL and UNK. If you are not affiliated with the university but have a recommendation from an instructor or former participant, please let us know who referred you on your application. Due to limited program capacity, we will review your application and notify you if you are accepted.

Each participant is required to attend all four main sessions (2.5 hours each) and a minimum of three office hours (30 minutes each); each team must also complete a minimum of 25 stakeholder interviews on their own time.

This local NSF I-Corps-based program offered by Missouri S&T is a six week course designed to provide researchers and innovators with the skills and tools necessary to identify and validate customer needs, develop a compelling value proposition, and achieve product-market fit. This course will cover:

Participants will learn how to use these insights to develop a unique value proposition and refine their product offering to meet the needs of their target market. Through hands-on exercises, case studies, and expert mentorship, participants will gain a deeper understanding of the innovation process and how to increase their chances of commercial success.

All times listed in Central Time Zone and events will be held virtually. 

Do you want to translate your research into impactful real-world applications? Join UW-Madison’s Technology Entrepreneurship Office (TEO) for the 2024 Summer I-Corps workshop co-hosted by Lincoln University. This free, six-week, non-credit, virtual workshop uses evidence-based strategies for achieving entrepreneurial success and is open to research faculty, staff, and students at any higher education institution. With help from NSF I-Corps trained instructors and the TEO Hi-Tech Mentor Network, participants will gain a comprehensive understanding of their future customers and market ecosystem.

All events are held virtually. Please note: No session on Thursday, July 4th, 2024.

This course provides a set of skills and entrepreneurial knowledge that can be applied to any career path. It uses the Lean LaunchPad method to give participants a working knowledge of how to think about their innovation ideas from a business and customer perspective, as well as how to conduct customer discovery interviews; the first step in any commercialization process. This free, online course is for faculty, researchers, postdocs, and students interested in practicing and honing their innovation skills. It is open to non-university participants as well.  

All course sessions occur virtually via Zoom from 9:00-11:00AM ET on Fridays, July 12, July 26, Aug 9, and Aug 23. In between the formal course sessions, you will conduct 20-30 customer discovery interviews, complete online learning assignments, apply the tools to your tech, and receive feedback and coaching from a team of experienced instructors/mentors.

This course will help you explore the commercial viability of your innovation. The Lean Launchpad approach is a process to help you systematically test key assumptions about your technology/product/service and the customer problems it may solve. This process will help you narrow your focus as you test specific hypotheses about your proposed product/service.

Come enroll in the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign's summer I-Corps program. We will meet 4 times over the course of the summer to help teams hone their customer discovery skills. Participants will have the opportunity to learn crucial skills to navigate the commercialization process for their ventures. We welcome you to join us and learn from both amazing instructors and collaborate with other entrepreneurs.

This course provides a set of skills and entrepreneurial knowledge that can be applied to any career path. It uses the Lean LaunchPad method to give participants a working knowledge of how to think about their innovation ideas from a business and customer perspective, as well as how to conduct customer discovery interviews; the first step in any commercialization process. This free course is for faculty, researchers, postdocs, and students interested in practicing and honing their innovation skills.  

All course events held in-person at Coordinated Science Laboratory, 1308 W Main Street, Urbana, IL 61801

These online workshops will help you explore the commercial viability of your deep tech innovation idea/IP. We teach the Lean LaunchPad approach, a process to help you systematically test key assumptions about your technology and the customer's problems. This assessment of “technology-problem fit” is the critical first step toward commercial success for any technology venture.

The ISU I-Corps program a training ground for faculty, postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate students to learn how to increase the impact of their research by exploring the commercial potential of their research and technology.  The five-week curriculum focuses on customer discovery to support the transition of ideas, devices, processes, or intellectual activities into the marketplace or for broader societal impact. This can be realized through the formation of new start-up businesses, licensing agreements, or identifying funding sources to support additional research.

In addition to offering industry exposure and entrepreneurial training for participating teams, the ISU I-Corps program will provide advice, resources, networking opportunities, and infrastructure for exploring commercialization opportunities, as well as connections to resources and programming available through the regional Great Lakes I-Corps Hub and the local innovation ecosystem.

Teams that complete the I-Corps program are eligible to receive $1,000 minigrants to support continued customer discovery efforts to advance their innovations towards commercialization.

All events are held virtually. 

The Milwaukee I-Corps Program, an affiliate of the NSF I-Corps Hub of Great Lakes Region, helps researchers and academic entrepreneurs explore viability of their research discoveries and/or technologies through the “Lean Launch” process of direct engagement with the potential markets in a series of online workshops.

Customer discovery is a central element of the Lean Launch. In the course of this four-week program teams will have an opportunity to carry out face-to-face customer interviews to test their technology-problem fit hypotheses. NSF I-Corps program will help participants to develop a new mindset (hypothesis-driven entrepreneurship) and to learn the art of business model iterative development.

You've identified a specific innovation that you think you may want to commercialize. Now what?

This program applies the Lean Startup approach and Customer Discovery methods to specific innovations. You are strongly encouraged to participate in the Customer Discovery 101 Workshop before this course. External industry executives, as well as experts from the Office for Technology Commercialization, the UMN Libraries, and the Carlson School of Management will be available to help. Up to $1,000 available to support customer discovery for academic teams. Lunch provided for participants.

You'll learn and apply the Lean LaunchPad customer development concepts promoted by the NSF I-Corps program. Successful completion of this program by academic teams or ventures with university-licensed technologies can lead to qualification for recommendation to the National I-Corps Teams program, which includes a $50,000 grant.

All events will be held in person at the University of Minnesota. Specific location TBD. 

All course events will occur virtually on Zoom on Fridays from 12:00-2:00PM ET (11:00AM-1:00PM CT): May 10, May 17, May 31, June 14, and June 28. 

In between the formal course sessions, you will conduct 20-30 customer discovery interviews, complete online learning assignments, apply the tools to your own ideas, and receive feedback and coaching from a team of experienced instructors/mentors. Please note that there will be a considerable amount of work between the workshop dates and times - approximately 8-10 hours/week. We highly recommend completing this course as a team due to the workload.

All course events will occur virtually on Zoom on Fridays from 12:00-2:00PM ET (11:00AM-1:00PM CT): May 10, May 17, May 31, June 14, and June 28. 

In between the formal course sessions, you will conduct 20-30 customer discovery interviews, complete online learning assignments, apply the tools to your own tech, and receive feedback and coaching from a team of experienced instructors/mentors. Please note that there will be a considerable amount of work between the workshop dates and times - approximately 8-10 hours/week. We highly recommend completing this course as a team due to the workload.