Burlington Standard

The University of Vermont is honored to be a partner in the newly awarded National Science Foundation (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Hub: Interior Northeast Region (IN I-Corps).

The NSF announced recently that they’ve awarded $15 million over five years for the implementation and execution of the IN I-Corps Hub. The Interior Northeast region that stretches from New Hampshire to West Virginia is representative of large portions of the US that are largely rural, economically underserved and working to restore economic vitality. IN I-Corps aims to expand the nation’s geography of innovation by creating a cohesive innovation ecosystem that delivers inclusive models of education and workforce training designed for and by innovators in rural regions and small cities.

The University of Vermont will be joined by Hub partner institutions Dartmouth College, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Buffalo, Syracuse University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Rochester, West Virginia University and Hub lead Cornell University. Each institution will be hosting regional I-Corps courses and contributing to programming and curriculum strategy.

Founded by the NSF in 2011, I-Corps programming nationwide empowers researchers to combine their technical and scientific knowledge with an entrepreneurial mindset to develop new technologies and startups that benefit society. The I-Corps curriculum addresses the knowledge gap between the skills needed to develop an innovative technology in a lab and the skills needed to bring that technology to market. With a core tenet of customer discovery, participants in I-Corps courses work to connect with potential customers and ensure the solutions they’re developing fill an existing market need.

The IN I-Corps Hub joins eight other I-Corps Hubs within the National Innovation Network (NIN), expanding the geographical reach of the network and promoting economic growth and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) talent development within rural communities and the small cities on their boundaries. The Hub will regularly offer regional courses designed to support geographically-dispersed participants in learning the I-Corps method of customer discovery and applying it to real world opportunities, while still remaining connected to their home institutions and communities. UVM has partnered with the Upstate NY I-Corps node for several years and welcomes the opportunity to deepen this relationship as a Hub partner spanning an important segment of the northeast. The NSF I-Corps program has gained wide recognition across academic institutions and industry partners as a valuable tool in accelerating the commercialization of university technologies to market. The cross-institutional partnership will enable UVM researchers to be part of a greater commercialization initiative beyond our own state’s borders.

“UVM aims to impact and drive growth in Vermont and across our region as part of our land-grant mission. I-Corps’ proven record of enabling entrepreneurs to translate ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace speaks for itself, and we’re excited to continue this collaboration to foster the commercialization of discoveries here in Vermont and Northern New England. As we partner with other leading research institutions across the interior northeast, our goal is to empower academic research to have the broadest possible societal impact and to advance economic development and greater community equity in the region” says Kirk Dombrowski, UVM Vice President for Research.

Partnering with the IN I-Corps Hub will strengthen and enhance our existing programs. These include the SPARK-VT program, which is modeled after the Stanford SPARK program, that provides funding and mentorship for faculty across the university engaged in commercialization and the NIH-funded IDeA Entrepreneurship (I-Trep) program which develops resources and provides training to support the growth of biomedical entrepreneurship in NIH designated IDeA jurisdictions. UVM has also served as the lead academic partner in the NIH-funded DRIVEN Accelerator Hub, one of four regional technology accelerator hubs designed to strengthen the entrepreneurial culture at IDeA institutions. The Center for Biomedical Innovation (CBI) is a joint initiative of the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, the College of Medicine, the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, and the School of Business with a particular focus on devices and systems that improve health and wellness in rural communities. The newly created student-led Academic Research Commercialization (ARC) program brings together students with faculty inventors to drive the growth of UVM startup companies.

“The success of our recent venture, PanicMechanic, is in large part thanks to our experiences with ARC and the regional and national I-Corps programs. These experiences have helped us find product-market fit with our company and have shaped how I approach translational research as a professor.” Says Ryan McGinnis, Associated Professor of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering at UVM and CEO of PanicMechanic, Inc. Corine Farewell, Director of UVM Innovations, will serve as the IN I-Corps Hub's local head of operations at UVM. Tina Thornton, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Co-Director, I-Trep Program, will serve as UVM's faculty lead.

A mission-critical element of the IN I-Corps Hub’s approach to entrepreneurship is the creation and administration of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives. STEM researchers in underrepresented groups face heightened barriers to success, and creating equitable access to resources and talent development is crucial to ensuring the most innovative deep-tech developments are being discovered and amplified. Hub leadership and partners are working to actively create opportunities to support the development of STEM research talent who are women, veterans, people of color, and individuals with disabilities. These initiatives will include collaborations with organizations like the National GEM Consortium’s Inclusion in Innovation Initiative (i4) and RIT’s National Technical Institute for the Deaf.

The University of Vermont is guided by the tenets of respect, integrity, innovation, openness, justice, and responsibility. UVM leadership is committed to creating a culture that is safe, supportive and encourages respect for every individual and celebrates diversity in its broadest forms, encompassing and exploring the dimension not only of racial and ethnic diversity but also gender, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, social economic background, and life experience. UVM is recognized as a champion for innovation in rural areas and is delighted to support the IN I-Corps Hub in building a replicable model of inclusive innovation that can be used around the country, not just in the major metros that have dominated in venture capital and high growth entrepreneurship to date.

The Interior Northeast I-Corps Hub will officially launch on January 1, 2023. Details are forthcoming for STEM researchers interested in learning about opportunities to participate in regional I-Corps courses at a Hub institution. For more information, visit in-icorps.org.

Original source can be found here.