I-Corps Sites: Tulane I-Corps Site for a Resurgent New Orleans

Tulane University, New Orleans LA

Investigators

Abstract

This project creates an I-Corps Site at Tulane University located in New Orleans, LA. The project contributes to Tulane?s innovation-translation efforts and also to the post-Katrina New Orleans? ecosystem ? particularly in the areas of technology, energy, and the environment. 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. Site funding is used to by academic institutions to catalyze teams (with amounts ranging from $1,000 to $3,000) whose technology concepts are likely candidates for commercialization. With the support and mentorship of the Sites, the teams learn first-hand about entrepreneurship and explore the transition of their ideas, devices, processes or other intellectual activities into the marketplace. I-Corps Sites also strengthen innovation locally and regionally and contribute to the National Innovation Network of mentors, researchers, entrepreneurs and investors. Tulane will fund fifteen Tulane I-Corps SIte teams per year, to move funded research out of the laboratories into the marketplace and to support commercialization of promising ideas emerging from the classroom (particularly capstone design courses that have generated a track record of launching intellectual property and start-up companies). Tulane has a critical mass of faculty researchers?many NSF-supported?willing to serve as Academic Advisors for Tulane I-Corps teams. Team Entrepreneurial Leads wil be recruited from students and postdocs and immersed in a curriculum emphasizing business model development based on Blank?s Customer Development process, Osterwalder?s Business Model Canvas, and Furr?s Nail It then Scale It process. Tulane and New Orleans have large pools of entrepreneurs willing to serve as Mentors to Tulane I-Corps teams?including emerging entrepreneurs from their interdisciplinary BioInnovation PhD Program and the Tulane Entrepreneurs Association (TEA). Broader Impacts: Anticipated program outcomes include increases in patentable technologies, start-up companies, and commercial licenses as well as students and faculty of the Tulane I-Corps teams who, by their deep involvement in innovation and entrepreneurship, will emerge as innovators and entrepreneurs. The Tulane I-Corps Site will strengthen Tulane?s commitment to STEM education, women and underrepresented minorities, global health initiatives, and service to persons with disabilities. The Development of new technologies will expand economic development and reinforce the growing life sciences industry of New Orleans and surrounding regions.