Program Benefits

The I-Corps program offers many potential benefits to participants. Here is a short list derived from the experience of past participants.

• Introduction to the programs and team at GW’s Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
• Grants of up to $3,000 to assist with customer discovery.
• Establish a path to NSF’s national I-Corps program with grants of $50,000 for I-Corps, and subsequent opportunities for the PFI-AIR prototyping grant and SBIR ($200,000).
• Improves quality of university research.
• Greater understanding of your technology/innovation and how it can benefit society.
• Knowledge about how to commercialize technology and the barriers to adoption.
• New market opportunities that you had not previously considered.
• New skills and toolset that you can use to test innovative ideas, make your research more commercially relevant, and assess potential new ventures.
• Greater self-confidence, and better presentation/interpersonal skills, in typical business settings.
• Savings in time and money through accelerated understanding about the real value of your innovation – from the market perspective.
• Expanded network through priceless interaction with teachers, investors, customers, and mentors.
• Satisfaction in building an innovation ecosystem that will significantly benefit the DC and greater mid-Atlantic region.
• Enhanced career opportunities. Be part of the “Lean” movement and make a “dent in the universe.”

I-Corps was a great experience.  It knocked us out of our comfort zones and taught us a lot.  If I’d had this information twenty years ago, I’d really have been dangerous!

-Kensall D. Wise, William Gould Dow Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, The University of Michigan