Seven Syracuse University teams are participating in the National Science Foundation Innovation-Corps program this month at SU Libraries. The program gives researchers the opportunity to combine strong technical and scientific knowledge with an entrepreneurial mindset, with the goal of discovering new technologies that can be developed and brought to market. The free short course, taught by NSF I-Corps faculty, is being jointly hosted at Syracuse University by the Blackstone LaunchPad powered by Techstars, the Office of Technology Transfer, and the Innovation Law Center at the College of Law. Attendees include Syracuse University faculty, along with graduate and undergraduate teams who are working with seasoned entrepreneurs to help connect them with potential industry partners, and other researchers working with deep technology, to learn how to take an idea from concept to commercialization.
The teams include:
IMSP
Tom King
WiFI Motion Detection
Yang Liu and Tiexing Wang
Kairos
Heath Hanlin and Chris Hanson
Breast Cancer Prediction
Matt Morales and Nicole Haddadnia
Bluerem
Noel Chang
Visos
Matthew Shumer
FirePower
Alexander Hartwell and Jepngmin Ahn
Two of the teams, Bluerem and Visos, are headed up by LaunchPad student entrepreneurs Noel Chang and Matthew Shumer, who are both finalists for the ‘Cuse Tank competition this Friday, October 18 at Bird Library.
The teams are learning:
- How to “get out of the building” and speak with potential customers
- Whether they are are solving a real-world problem with a sizeable market opportunity
- New ways to apply your current or future research to solve real-life challenges
- Understanding of the “Business Model Canvas” framework
- Identification of primary customer segments for your technology/product
- Stating hypotheses about the value proposition you can offer each customer segment
- Writing questions that can be used to confirm or disprove your hypotheses
- Talking to potential customers about their problems/needs
- Assessing how customer discovery impacts a hypotheses
- Determining whether and how to pivot based on customer feedback
- Presenting ideas, progress and findings to the class
- Receiving and applying feedback from experienced entrepreneurs
The course wraps with pitches on October 25 at Bird Library.