This project creates an NSF I-Corps Site at Northeastern University.
NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Sites are NSF-funded entities established at universities whose purpose is to nurture and support multiple, local teams to transition their technology concepts into the marketplace. Sites provide infrastructure, advice, resources, networking opportunities, training and modest funding to enable groups to transition their work into the marketplace or into becoming I-Corps Team applicants. I-Corps Sites also strengthen innovation locally and regionally and contribute to the National Innovation Network of mentors, researchers, entrepreneurs and investors.
This Site leverages Northeastern's entrepreneurship ecosystem as well as that of the larger Boston innovation ecosystem. The foundation for the program is a growing body of funded research which offers untapped opportunities for commercialization. To facilitate entrepreneurship, Northeastern created a series of entrepreneurship courses for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as an on-campus incubator feeding ventures into the local investment community.
The Northeastern I-Corps Site program substantially increases both the quantity and quality of STEM-related ventures founded through its Site. The I-Corps Site program also leverage Northeastern's technology licensing office as well as its Mentor and Investors Networks in support of Site teams. There are 280 active individual Mentors supporting Northeastern's startups, as well as a variety of angel and venture capital investors who regularly assess Northeastern ventures, fifty of which have garnered $70 million in venture finance over the past three years.
Northeastern University's entrepreneurship system is based on the meta-process of Educate, Incubate, and Launch. The I-Corp Site program is a highly focused way to a) better recruit a specific graduate, postdoc, and faculty population of potential technological entrepreneurs, and b) provide initial entrepreneurship and innovation education and training for them. Northeastern is also conducting research to more clearly understand the effect of entrepreneurial learning for first time entrepreneurs in its own incubator, focusing on the specific areas of developing customer insight, new product and service solutions, and business models. Several I-Corp ventures are already part of this study.
Northeastern's Site goals are to increase the number and quality of technology ventures emerging from laboratories and to feed new ventures into the I-Corps National program. Another important impact is that I-Corps offers a complementary pathway for early stage ventures to pursue initial funding through I-Corps Node and SBIR/STTR programs. Another potential impact is the expansion of this program in subsequent years to early stage entrepreneurs working in the numerous research environments within one mile of the Northeastern campus. These institutions include the medical schools and hospitals affiliated with Harvard, Tufts, and Boston University, as well as organizations pursuing research in robotics, cybersecurity, and IoT among other STEM areas.
