NSF I-Corps fall cohort underway with 21 participating innovators
In five weeks, each start-up is tasked with collecting 20 customer discovery interviews to advance their product, innovation, or service offering.
Customer discovery is the lifeblood of successful startups. It’s how founders learn what their potential customers actually need, not just what they think they want. By getting out of the laboratory and talking to industry professionals, potential early adopters, and decision makers, academic researchers transitioning into entrepreneurship can avoid costly missteps. It also helps them build solutions that truly solve market problems.
The now fully virtual NSF Midsouth I-Corps program is directly focused on the customer discovery process. The program, hosted by the University of Tennessee, is run by the Office of Research, Innovation, and Economic Development (OREID) and its Director, Marc Nabhan.
I-Corps offers a five-week entrepreneurial training that includes workshops, office hours, and customer discovery interviews to help researchers commercialize their innovations.
This semester, 21 academic innovators joined the NSF I-Corps program to work through the process.
Meet the teams
Aquafer Technologies
Aquafer Technologies develops advanced PFAS absorption media designed for applications ranging from household filters to large-scale water treatment plants. Unlike competitors that target only a handful of contaminants, our technology effectively addresses thousands of forever chemicals.
Ascend HX
The pioneering of next-generation Al alloy heat exchangers (HXs) enables the development of more efficient and high-performance heat exchangers that aim to meet the current aerospace demands. Develop lightweight, affordable heat exchangers for future aerospace applications, delivered by a team committed to aerospace innovation, agility, and performance.
Bindly
Bindly is an integrated AI Studying Agent that leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) for an optimized and seamless assisted studying experience.
Caringdementia
Would like to support family caregivers of persons living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias to mitigate behavioral symptoms.
Crate Buddy
The Crate Buddy is a new device designed to let bicycle riders have a fully customizable and useful tool to attach to their bike. The Crate Buddy uses a modular system of attachments to turn the average milk crate into the ultimate bike riding accessory.
Cybersmarts
FraudDNA™ is an AI-driven technology that generates unique “fraud signatures” to detect synthetic identities and compromised data before they are exploited. Integrated into the PatriotProof™ ecosystem, it delivers proactive fraud elimination and digital trust for defense systems.
Dark Star Geographics
A comprehensive full-stack framework for web-based geospatial applications. It would allow for the rapid development of web mapping apps to meet the specific needs of customers in terms of data, tools, modeling, and integration into existing systems, ranging from simple to highly complex solutions.
DermGate
A digital dermatology hospital platform to optimize dermatologists’ time, where AI provides them with diagnostic prediction, a second opinion, and optimizes their time in writing reports, providing detailed descriptions of drugs, and summarizing their case for accurate follow-ups.
DiMAS
DiMAS (Diamond-based Microfluidic Alpha Spectrometer) is a sensor designed to provide isotopic identification for Ac-225 targeted alpha therapy treatments. Utilizing diamond’s robust nature as a semiconductor and a nanometer-scale microfluidic trench for volume control, the sensor provides quality control-focused insight into Ac-225 cocktail composition by direct integration with current HPLC systems.
Eco-Life
Promote natural, healthy, and eco-friendly products and ways of living.
ExoShield Materials
We are developing a new reactive chemistry platform to rapidly manufacture high-performance multifunctional coating materials. These advanced materials will enable applications ranging from lightweight structural composites to conductive, protective, and energy-relevant coatings across electronics, aerospace, and additive manufacturing.
GetOrganized.Ai
A brainstorming and research application to use instead of or alongside Notion, ClickUp, or Jira. Made for organizing projects, AI chats, and notes.
Kupros
Kupros has developed Cu29, the world’s first all-metal, power-grade conductive filament for standard FDM 3D printers. It enables engineers to print fully functional circuits, antennas, sensors, and EMI shielding directly into parts, no wires, boards, or post-processing required.
Landauer Solutions
A quantum transceiver using entangled particles to transmit and receive data instantaneously across any distance.
New Horizon Precision (Agri Aero Vision)
Ag. Tech drone-based aerial spraying service that works with local co-ops to scale rapidly and ensure that farmers actually benefit from the articulated of artificial intelligence with trusted implementers.
NXT MFG, LLC
Large-scale metal additive manufacturing is a difficult, multi-disciplinary, knowledge-intensive undertaking. NXT MFG is making software to reduce the knowledge burden and make metal 3D printing more practical for real-world manufacturers.
Pareto
Pareto is a personal optimization system that helps users improve outcomes in any area of life by identifying which actions have the greatest impact. Through tracking, learning, and recommendations, it guides users to do less but do it better.
RepGuard
An app that uses Pose Estimation to correct form in weightlifting to prevent injury and maximize performance.
StreetWise
A street inventory application that helps to gather data about road health, such as the presence of potholes, and gives the data generated to the right authorities, like the state or county, to help fix the problem.
Sylvenor
Plans to produce sustainable nanoparticles from lignin for applications such as bio-based composites and stimuli-responsive (i.e., controlled release) materials
We will report in more depth on a few of the teams following the presentation of customer discovery results on November 12.
Learn more about I-Corps here.
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