IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - December 2020 - 56

Entrepreneur Viewpoint

by Issa Batarseh

Academic Entrepreneurship:
The NSF I-Corps Program-Part II

oday, the I-Corps program is a
nationally-renowned initiative
with sites throughout the U.S.
One full site was launched at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in
January 2015 and was the first I-Corps
program in the state of Florida.
This program is customer-focused
learning and targets early stage startups. It promises that spinning off an
invention into a business is a process
that can be learned and systematically executed. This program serves
as the platform to initiate a conversation between your team members on
one side and the market and customer
on the other side, test your idea, and
provide a better sense of direction for
your idea and its applications. It helps
students gain the resources, knowledge, confidence, and skills to enter
an industry mindset and to convert
their creative ideas into something
tangible and useful. The training also
teaches learning more about the entrepreneur. It helps them ascertain
the skills to create successful businesses and, in turn, stimulate the
economy. The I-Corps program utilizes the scientific method to test and
validate potential opportunities. The
program is built on a framework of
business model canvas and customer
discovery and validation. It focuses
on evidence and experience based
lessons versus theoretical learning,
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPEL.2020.3033723
Date of current version: 16 December 2020

IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE

making it a unique accelerated entrepreneurship training experience. Unlike
traditional lecture-based courses, the
I-Corps program is a flipped, practical,
hands-on learning lab that helps teams
live and engage in the entrepreneurial
experience through a systematic process of structured activities and mentorship by industry experts. Each participating team experiences a simulation of
startup and the entrepreneurship process in the real-world environment that
includes chaos, uncertainly, impossible
deadlines, and conflicting input.
The key features of the program
are as follows:
■ The I-Corps program is a real time
process that helps accelerate the
innovation process and gives participating teams exciting opportunities in entrepreneurship education.
The design methodology consists of
tools, materials, templates, actions,
assessments, and decision-making
points. At every point a decision is
made, a new set of steps are
required to be followed to keep the
teams engaged and moving forward
in the program.
■ I-Corps focuses on making better
informed " go-no-go " decisions.
Therefore, increasing the number
of qualified " go " decisions is as
important as increasing the number
of " no go " decisions when the discovery process indicates that they
are the better decision.
■ Participants are expected to commit 10 -15 hours every week to per-

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■

form market research, customer
discovery, and other commercialization-focused activities. Teams
conduct interviews and report their
findings on a weekly basis. Instructors provide materials in class and
use online educational delivery
methods.
I-Corps offers proven curricula,
tools, and methodologies such as
the Business Model Canvas (BMC)
and Lean Launchpad (LLP) to help
entrepreneurs determine the feasibility of their potential venture.
Through the Customer Discovery
process, I-Corps requires team
members to reach outside of the
academic environment to speak
with potential customers and identify the impact their innovation may
have within the market or on a specific industry. Using the BMC, the
assumptions of the initial business
models are then updated based on
the gathered information to help
entrepreneurs make informed decisions based on actual data.
Key component of the course is
customer discovery. It is your
chance to listen to the voices of
your future customers. The customer discovery phase is crucial to collect badly needed input from your
targeted markets.
The program, through series of
questions and calculated steps,
helps you to define your value
proposition, i.e. what your technology does to solve customer

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