Type 1: Innovation Binghamton NSF I-Corps Site

This project, from Binghamton University, creates an NSF 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. I-Corps Sites also strengthen innovation locally and regionally and contribute to the National Innovation Network of mentors, researchers, entrepreneurs and investors. The Binghamton I-Corps Site strengthens the ecosystem at Binghamton University. By integrating existing innovation support programs and technology transfer with entrepreneurship and business incubation services, technologies stemming from faculty research, student ingenuity, and community innovators are evaluated for commercial viability. Experienced technology transfer professionals, technical experts resident in Binghamton's industry-facing centers, and on-staff entrepreneurship and financial advisers recruit teams and promote promising teams into the program. Entrepreneurship and engineering faculty, entrepreneurs-in-residence (EIRs), and community coaches and mentors stimulate ideation and team building, and guide the innovators through theory and practice, and, ultimately, the go / no-go decision. By virtue of a rigorous selection process and hands-on training, the teams with customer-validated, technology- and manufacturing-feasible products and services proceed with commercialization with further support from the university, local businesses, and funders, as well as the I-Corps regional and national nodes. The process creates a growing cadre of entrepreneurs who continue to innovate, build businesses, mentor and invest in others, and overall recharge the entrepreneurial ecosystem, making Binghamton and the University a hub for entrepreneurs, investors, and start-up companies. The Binghamton I-Corps Site is meant to transform the mindset of University faculty, staff and students, as well as that of community members and leaders by providing a practical, achievable approach to generating new, sustainable ventures built around technologies. Demonstrating this path forward creates positive and powerful relationships between universities, the local business, professional services and investor communities, industry, and government. Generating trust and interactions between academia-private sector-government has ripple effects far beyond the teams going through the program, and propagate a self-sustaining, entrepreneurial ecosystem driven and replenished by new launches. Furthermore, by bringing together entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, this Site program blurs lines separating big and small business, manufacturing and service industries, academia and the private sector, and spurs efforts towards the common goal of value and job creation through new ventures. Successful launches of companies inspire Binghamton University researchers, students and graduates, and instill optimism about the prospects for creating wealth and fulfilling jobs in Binghamton, or wherever their careers take them throughout the nation.