NSF Org:	TI Translational Impacts
Recipient:	WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY
Initial Amendment Date:	January 13, 2016
Latest Amendment Date:	December 8, 2021
Award Number:	1547873
Award Instrument:	Continuing Grant
Program Manager:	Ruth Shuman rshuman@nsf.gov  (703)292-2160 TI  Translational Impacts TIP  Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships
Start Date:	January 15, 2016
End Date:	December 31, 2022 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount:	$294,325.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date:	$411,724.00
Funds Obligated to Date:	FY 2016 = $101,725.00 FY 2017 = $96,300.00 FY 2018 = $96,300.00 FY 2020 = $58,599.00 FY 2021 = $58,800.00
History of Investigator:	BRIAN KRAFT (Principal Investigator) bkraft@urbanova.org Marie Mayes (Co-Principal Investigator) Tiffany Reiss (Co-Principal Investigator) Travis Woodland (Former Principal Investigator) Howard Davis (Former Co-Principal Investigator) BRIAN KRAFT (Former Co-Principal Investigator) Asa Brown (Former Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office:	Washington State University 240 FRENCH ADMINISTRATION BLDG PULLMAN WA  US  99164-0001 (509)335-9661
Sponsor Congressional District:	05
Primary Place of Performance:	Washington State University Pullman WA  US  99164-2714
Primary Place of Performance Congressional District:	05
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI):	XRJSGX384TD6
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s):	I-Corps-Sites
Primary Program Source:	01001617DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001718DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01002021DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT 01002122DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s):
Program Element Code(s):	804600
Award Agency Code:	4900
Fund Agency Code:	4900
Assistance Listing Number(s):	47.084

ABSTRACT

This project, from Washington State University (WSU) creates an I-Corps Site at this institution.

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.

The WSU Site serves as mechanism for collaboration across campus, acting as a structure for providing experiential learning opportunities for students and faculty. By expanding the connectivity between related programs on and off campus, the Site realizes benefits that transcend the individual efforts and enhance WSU's contribution to the national innovation ecosystem as well as the geographical region around WSU.

The goal of WSU's I-Corps Site is to enhance and broaden access to existing entrepreneurship programs within their experiential entrepreneurship ecosystem. To accomplish this goal, 30 to 40 I-Corps Teams per year are supported, expanding startup generation activities to include an 8-week training and idea development process. Each supported Team produces a draft business model for a university technology or Site-generated business idea. Those Teams emerge ready to pursue funding or partnership opportunities through the Site network and national I-Corps Network. Ultimately, WSU will provide a core blueprint for student/faculty collaborative experiential entrepreneurship training which will provide additional pathways for STEM students to engage with faculty in the business assessment of new technology ideas. Bringing WSU into the I-Corps national network allows Site Leaders to accelerate the positive startup culture velocity achieved in the last few years.

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

Although our participation was down this year in the two regular I-Corps cohorts, we believe due to COVID burnout and all campus activities remaining mostly remote for the first half of 2022, we did have a second positive initial engagement with an interdisciplinary course of PHD students: MPS574: Protein Biotechnology in Fall semester.   This course is an NIH funded course specifically designed to bring PhD students from various subject areas together to explorebiotechnology opportunities from various interdisciplinary perspectives.

For this course specifically, we were able to initially identify 15 current disclosed technologies by faculty to the university that were randomly assigned to 10 total teams within the protein biotech course.  Bi-weekly, the students were exposed to the I-Corps content in the same way it would have been disseminated in a typical cohort.  Student teams were initially assigned 2 technologies each and then asked to select the one technology they thought had the most commercial potential.  They then engaged in the customer discovery process as teams and reported to the class every other week their progress on their chosen technology and insights gained from the customer discovery process.   This project culminated in a “report out” final presentation in which entrepreneurship students also attended and were allowed to ask questions of the teams as they presented. 

This project was a great success with the students very engaged in the process.  We plan to continue this project in 2022 with the same course and are beginning to investigate the possibility of offering a 1 credit I-Corps like course for all graduate students through the Center For Entrepreneurship.

Last Modified: 03/06/2023
Modified by: Brian Kraft

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