I-Corps@CCTSI

Upcoming Session Dates:

Do you want to learn how to accelerate the translation of your biomedical discoveries and health innovation into viable commercial products? Are you part of a team that wants to move your innovative idea off campus and into the real world?

What is I-Corps@CCTSI?

The NIH is offering this entrepreneurial training program at select Institutions across the country to accelerate the translation of innovations from the lab to clinical practice. The NIH selected the CCTSI to bring the I-Corps program to biomedical and translational researchers.

Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) uses proven customer-discovery methodologies for startups. It was developed for academic researchers by serial entrepreneurs working with the National Science Foundation.  It has been used to train hundreds of teams of innovators across the nation.

I-Corps@CCTSI is a team-based short course designed for faculty, staff and students. The program guides teams through the early stages of customer discovery where they can test the business model hypotheses for their technology or idea.

We are proud to be working in partnership with CU Innovations (formerly the Technology Transfer Office) and the Children’s Hospital Colorado Center for Innovation.

Here's what participants are saying about I-Corps@CCTSI:

"The I-Corps program allowed our team to identify gaps in our knowledge about our product and prioritize our next steps. The in-person format was particularly useful as it allowed us to cross disciplines, have open conversations, and understand similar problems from different perspectives. The faculty were knowledgeable and helped identify areas that needed additional team brainstorming and fact gathering. The customer discovery process provided critical insights to the needs, barriers, and alternative ways of thinking about product focus and implementation. It helped to concentrate our limited resources on the highest impact areas."

Julie A. Dunn, MD, MS
CMO LifeBoard Medical

"Completing the I-Corps program last fall was a perfect time for LifeBoard Medical to check in with potential customers and refine our value proposition to focus on their prioritized needs versus our opinion on priorities.  The I-Corps team was instrumental in two areas, first they helped us get in front of the right people for our customer interviews and secondly, they helped us refine our strategies by being a great sounding board through the program.  Proper customer discovery should be a critical part of any successful business development process."

I-Corps Success Story: the Button Huggie

Learn about how an I-Corps team won a Shark Tank award for the Button Huggie, a device to secure gastrostomy buttons.