Program details

Team

All UMD professors, research staff, post docs, graduate students, and undergraduate students with potentially commercializable research or technology-based business ideas are eligible to participate and encouraged to apply. UMD also welcomes researchers and technology entrepreneurs from the Maryland System and from the broader region to apply to the program. While individuals may apply to the course, it is strongly encouraged to apply as a team of at least two members, and to apply with a mentor to support you in the program.

Format

UMD’s Introduction to I-Corps Course is a short, intense, experiential, bootcamp-style cohort. Participants will work closely with teammates, with other teams, and with mentors and instructors to develop business models around their innovations. Courses are approximately two weeks in duration, with the cohort meeting in person three or four times during the two week span. Teams must also commit to conducting a significant number of customer interviews during the two weeks, and to completing readings and assignments. Participants should plan on spending 50% of their time on I-Corps during these two weeks.

Course Content

This short I-Corps course will introduce you to the concepts of business model generation and the process of customer discovery. The course will give you the tools to begin to determine whether your innovation, in its current stage, has product-market fit.

"Customer discovery is invaluable because it forces you to challenge your assumptions and to refine your ideas before investing too much time and money. I now find myself evaluating all sorts of products in this light."

—Lisa Kuder, Entomology PhD Candidate, University of Maryland, June 2018 Cohort

Fees

Introduction to I-Corps Courses at UMD are free to all participants. Teams that proceed to NSF’s national I-Corps Teams cohorts are eligible to receive $50,000 grants.

Dates

UMD offers Introduction to I-Corps classes several times each year.  Click here for a list of upcoming cohorts at UMD. Click here for a list of upcoming cohorts at I-Corps partner universities in the region.

Next Steps

After successful completion of the Introduction to I-Corps Course, teams may be eligible to apply to NSF’s national I-Corps Teams program. Teams will also be well positioned to pursue TEDCO MII awards, MIPS funding, SBIR/STTR and other support and funding programs.