Universities are important hubs and drivers of innovation and technology, but many studentinventions remain embryonic in nature. This implies that they need further development beforetheir commercial value or potential can become imminent or evident, and one of the reasons whythis has happened is a certain myopia in the governmental funds policies, that fund early stageproducts’ concept without focusing of the users’ insights, as well as the creation if a stakeholders’network to make the product more viable to commercialization. The Innovation Corps (I-Corps),which uses the Lean LaunchPad methodology and emphasizes the customer discovery journey,represents a shift in this sense, since, for the first time, a governmental institution (the US NationalScience Foundation [NSF]) invests in the student innovators’ education and networking outside ofacademia. Therefore, aim of this paper is review and analyze the period 2011-2018 of the NSF ICorpsas a case study, together with one of its main regional nodes of development (New YorkCity Regional Innovation Node), in order to understand if its methodology can contribute to aninnovation-oriented educational entrepreneurship paradigm. The applied methodology provides alongitudinal analysis of the NSF I-Corps achievements in quantitative terms (n° of startupssuccessfully funded, individuals trained), and the results show that its teaching methods allowed asuccessful go-to-market of many startups in the STEM field –– a number higher than those reachedthrough other US governmental grants programs.
A retrospective (2011-2018) of the I-Corps Entrepreneurship Education program and of the New York City Regional Innovation Node
Caratu' M.
;
2022-01-01
Abstract
Universities are important hubs and drivers of innovation and technology, but many studentinventions remain embryonic in nature. This implies that they need further development beforetheir commercial value or potential can become imminent or evident, and one of the reasons whythis has happened is a certain myopia in the governmental funds policies, that fund early stageproducts’ concept without focusing of the users’ insights, as well as the creation if a stakeholders’network to make the product more viable to commercialization. The Innovation Corps (I-Corps),which uses the Lean LaunchPad methodology and emphasizes the customer discovery journey,represents a shift in this sense, since, for the first time, a governmental institution (the US NationalScience Foundation [NSF]) invests in the student innovators’ education and networking outside ofacademia. Therefore, aim of this paper is review and analyze the period 2011-2018 of the NSF ICorpsas a case study, together with one of its main regional nodes of development (New YorkCity Regional Innovation Node), in order to understand if its methodology can contribute to aninnovation-oriented educational entrepreneurship paradigm. The applied methodology provides alongitudinal analysis of the NSF I-Corps achievements in quantitative terms (n° of startupssuccessfully funded, individuals trained), and the results show that its teaching methods allowed asuccessful go-to-market of many startups in the STEM field –– a number higher than those reachedthrough other US governmental grants programs.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
