Applications are open to the public for local and regional NSF I-Corps training programs this fall. Participants will receive direct coaching from experts to assist with customer discovery and determining commercial viability for their business idea. Startup teams that work through the commitment requirements also become eligible for $1,000 in funding and potential expense coverage.
Facilitated by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and the University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO), these online programs are offered free to the wider community. I-Corps stands for the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps program, which assists scientists and engineers from institutions of higher education move inventions from the lab to the market. The Nebraska I-Corps – Introduction to Customer Discovery program under UNL and the Great Lakes I-Corps Hub runs from September 16 through October 28. The Fall 2024 UNO Regional I-Corps Cohort under UNO and the Great Plains I-Corps Hub runs from September 27 to October 25. Both programs are delivered virtually.
“I-Corps is a great framework to learn more about customer discovery and to keep your team or company accountable for engaging in stakeholders in a systematic way,” said Joy Eakin, entrepreneurship program manager at NUtech Ventures in Lincoln. “Anyone who wants to explore the problems and needs of their target stakeholder group—and test if their innovation or business idea is truly a solution for that problem—should join this fall for Nebraska I-Corps.”
Dr. Brent Clark, associate director of UNO’s Center for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Franchising, said the Fall 2024 UNO Regional I-Corps Cohort targets anyone starting out on their entrepreneurial journey or seeking a new direction with their existing company.
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“We’re trying to help them ask the right questions and become experts at understanding who they’re selling to and why and what their appeal is,” said Clark. “These core underlying principles are applicable to any startup, any small company.”
Both Eakin and Clark encourage early stage Nebraska startups to take advantage of the trainings, especially as similar opportunities are typically only available to those affiliated with universities or whose intellectual property is owned by a college.
Sheila Fields, president and founder of BFields Solutions and the nonprofit Bobby Byars Foundation, took part in regional I-Corps training hosted by UNO in the spring of 2024. Fields is now in the process of seeking national I-Corps training as an entrepreneurial lead for her UNMC-based team.
“If you’re going to be a part of the cohort, be very intentional, be engaged and actually take advantage of the resources that are part of this project,” said Fields. “The whole point of customer discovery is to decide if what has been invented, if what we’ve envisioned, even makes sense to continue on.”
Applications for the UNL I-Corps – Introduction to Customer Discovery program are due September 12. Applications for the Fall 2024 UNO Regional I-Corps Cohort are due September 13.
