IGERT Fellow Todd Alexander is a recipient of an NSF I-Corps award where he will be the Entrepreneurial lead. The primary goal of the I-Corps is to foster entrepreneurship that will lead to the commercialization of technology that has been supported by NSF-funded research. By the end of the I-Corps session the entrepreneurial team should be able to come to a decision about continuing the commercialization of the research. The curriculum centers around getting outside of the building and talking to real customers in order to figure out the proper business model and improve their value proposition. The grant is for $50,000 dollars, but much of this money will be used for travel expenses to go out and meet the customers. The goal is to talk to over 100 different customers before the 1.5 month program portion award finishes.
