NSF I-Corps Hub: Desert and Pacific Region

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Program Overview

A fully funded NSF I-Corps experience for the academic community that combines entrepreneurial training with immersive customer discovery at SPIE Optics + Photonics in San Diego. This intensive course accelerates teams toward business model fit through virtual sessions and in-person conference engagement, where participants conduct real-world customer interviews.

Course Schedule

Virtual Kickoff
Tue-Wed, Aug 18-19 | 1-5 p.m. MST

SPIE Conference | San Diego
Mon-Thu, Aug 24-27 | In Person

Virtual Weekly Sessions
Wednesdays: Sep 2, 9, 16 | 1-4 p.m. MST

Each team can have 1 to 5 team members participate in the course. It is recommended that more than 1 person participate in the course since the workload is approximately 8-10 hours/week, however, 1-person teams are welcome to participate. We ask that each team member be assigned to the role that they align most closely with based on the definitions below. Team members cannot fulfill multiple roles. If you are a 1-person team, we recommend selecting the Entrepreneurial Lead role. Industry Mentors are welcome to participate in the course, but it is not a requirement for teams to have a mentor, nor will they be provided/assigned.

The Entrepreneurial Lead (EL) is the team leader and must attend every session. They will be driving the team’s customer discovery efforts and are responsible for leading weekly report-outs during the course. The EL could be a Post-Doctoral scholar, graduate or other student, or other personnel with relevant knowledge of the technology and a deep commitment to investigate the commercial landscape surrounding the innovation.

The Technical Lead (TL) is someone with deep and direct technical expertise in the core technology. They might be a faculty member, senior research scientist, or postdoctoral scholar, or the “inventor” of the technology.

The Industry Mentor (IM) should be an experienced entrepreneur who is independent from the technology development and team. The IM should guide the team through the I-Corps process and help navigate the business ecosystem in the specific application area(s).

You may also have a co-Entrepreneurial Lead (co-EL) or co-Technical Lead (co-TL) on the team to share the responsibilities of those roles.

We understand that outside of I-Corps you may have a larger team working with you, however, for the purposes of this course, we only need to know about team members that are actively participating. Active participation is defined as regularly attending the course sessions and completing the required surveys. Please only include individuals who will actively participate in the course on this application.

NOTE: For Regional+ courses, full team participation is required.

Please submit only one application per team. Each team member is NOT required to submit a unique application.

For additional questions or further information, please reach out to Steven Wood, StevenW@tla.arizona.edu.