Information for Accepted National Teams

Congratulations to all teams that have been accepted into the U.S. National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps (I-Corps^TM) Teams training program. As you prepare for the program, browse this page for information pertaining to your participation.

Please expect to receive information on registration seven to eight weeks before the training begins. Each team member will need to register and select your team's name. Your team's name is an important part of your entrepreneurial journey.

You will also receive a welcome letter four weeks out from the start of the training from VentureWell, NSF's curriculum and assessment partner for the I-Corps program. VentureWell will introduce you to your teaching team and provide important information on pre-program homework, the agenda and syllabus, online course management software, and how to connect virtually for meetings.

The agenda for the training program consists of:

• a three and one-half day kickoff session
• five weekly half-day sessions
• a final two-day session, including a lessons learned presentation

The entire training program lasts seven weeks, and participants are expected to dedicate a minimum of 15 hours per week to the program. The sessions combine instructor and team presentations with active discussion and interaction. The focus of the program is customer discovery, in which teams interview potential customers and industry stakeholders with the goal of evaluating potential product-market fit of their technology and to inform their potential business model. By the end of the program, each team is expected to have conducted at least 100 interviews with potential customers and other stakeholders in their proposed target markets. Teams will present their customer discovery results and next steps during a final "lessons learned" presentation.