Syracuse Sun

Syracuse University will host a virtual National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (NSF I-Corps) regional course from February 10 to March 12, 2025. Applications are open until January 15, 2025. The course is available to teams from academic institutions, research organizations, and innovation hubs to equip researchers with skills and strategies for bringing technological innovations to market. Space is limited, and university faculty and student researchers are encouraged to apply.

The NSF I-Corps program helps researchers transition from laboratory discoveries to commercial applications. Participants will engage in customer discovery through hands-on activities and expert mentorship. This process aims to identify the best product-market fit for their technology or research project. The program also provides access to government grant programs like NSF SBIR/STTR, which fund investments of up to $2 million without equity requirements.

The course includes live virtual sessions and one-on-one meetings for additional guidance from instructors. Participants will gain experience in customer discovery, receive feedback from NSF-trained instructors, understand product-market fit better, and potentially be nominated for the NSF I-Corps Teams program.

Scheduled sessions include one-hour virtual classes at convenient times with two days dedicated to mentoring sessions:

- Session 1: Monday, February 17

- Session 2a: Wednesday, February 19 (mentoring)

- Session 2b: Friday, February 21

- Session 3: Monday, February 24

- Session 4: Wednesday, February 26 (mentoring)

- Session 5a: Wednesday, March 5

- Session 5b: Monday, March 10

- Session 6: Wednesday, March 12

The NSF I-Corps programming is co-led by Linda Dickerson Hartsock from the Libraries; Jeff Fuchsberg of the Syracuse Center for Advanced Systems and Engineering; and Cristiano Bellavitis of the Martin J. Whitman School of Management as project research lead. Whitman Interim Dean Alex McKelvie serves as principal investigator for the University’s NSF I-Corps grant.

For more information about the upcoming course, contact Hartsock at ldhart01@syr.edu or Fuchsberg at jrfuchsb@syr.edu.

The NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) assists STEM researchers in moving from fundamental research to commercialization through a national network of training programs and partnerships. Syracuse University offers this course as part of the Interior Northeast I-Corps Hub (IN I-Corps), funded by the NSF and led by Cornell University with collaborators including Dartmouth College and others.