Speaker 1  0:02  
As always, I'd like to take a moment to thank autumns 2021. Online Professional Development sponsor, we appreciate your ongoing support. I now have the pleasure of introducing you to today's distinguished speakers. Arrow Arklay is the founder of M 34 capital and investment company that focuses on seed and early stage projects in spun out of academic and corporate research labs across a broad spectrum of technologies and geographies. He's also the founder of usrc a.org, a nonprofit with a focus on entrepreneur education for science and engineering graduates previously are always the founding and lead program director for the National Science Foundation innovation core program. You might be iCore effort from its inception until July 2013. Prior to this, he was the lead Software and Services Program Director for the NSF SBIR program. Before his government service, owl was founder and CEO of strategy and life sciences acquired by aquarium International and manager of product engineering at Redwood microsystems. He received his BS in mechanical engineering from GW University and his Master's and PhD PhD degrees in aero Astro Engineering from MIT. Dr. Christine Canaria is a program director in the Small Business Innovation Research Development Center at the National Cancer Institute. She provides programmatic support to small businesses applying to the SBIR and STTR programs, and has areas of expertise in biological imaging, biosensors and nanotechnology. She provides program oversight for innovation iCore at the NIH and Support Center initiatives conduct conducts outreach activities and oversees a portfolio of biotech companies developing innovative cancer care technologies, Dr. Canaria was awarded the a Science and Technology Policy Fellowship and began science policy work in Washington DC in 2013. Previously, she managed an optical microscopy facility at DOE Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as an imaging expert and neurobiologist. Dr. Marriott are interns PhD in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and a BS in chemistry from the University of California San Diego. And last but not least, Babu das Gupta is an independent consultant and the Senior Scientist for the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee as an independent consultant who works closely with to attack Turkey technology development foundation of Turkey and venture well to increase the awareness of the lean startup methodology, and that of the university industry partnerships. He also collaborated with venture well on the Innovate Egypt program to offer the lean startup methodology curriculum. In 2018, Babu was one of the lean startup instructors conducting entrepreneurship development at the Indian Institute of Technology and Watrous. Prior to his current role, he served as the program director at the National Science Foundation, and chief scientist for contact division at SPX corporations and has held various professorships. Please join me in welcoming Errol Christi and Baboo. And Errol, I will pass it up for you to get us started.

Speaker 2  3:13  
Thanks, Jerry. All right, let me pull up my screen here. I want to begin by thanking autumn and Sami for the invitation to speak here today. I know that it means a lot to me to be able to talk about the 10 year retrospective for the Innovation Corps. And it's a pleasure for me to be sharing the stage with the two components of the ICORE from the very beginning, Christie and Babu. What we're going to be talking about today is the genesis of Ichor. I'll begin by kicking off giving a little bit of history and background of that. And then Christy will talk about the NIH prospective. And in particular how the ICORE program has expanded beyond the NSF and Bob, who will talk about the university perspective. And I want to pause here for just a second and say that the the reason why the ICORE program has, I think made such an impact across the spectrum is because of people like Christine Babu, who have really championed taking the platform that is a customer discovery and broadening it beyond the NSF to include NIH, and DOD and Department of Defense and, and others. And so it's a real pleasure to see how it's grown over the last 10 years. We just had our 100th iCore cohort at the National Science Foundation in the beginning of this spring, and it was an honor to see the 22,400 team, go through the ICORE program. A little bit of that background about the VI Corps is that it started in the really the conceptualize. In the spring of 2011, there was a new director of the National Science Foundation. And he was the former dean of the School of Engineering at MIT. And he was at NSF. And he had the idea that he wanted to increase the economic impact of NSF basic research. And so the natural place for that query to go was to the Small Business Innovation Research program at NSF. And that's where I was a program manager at the time. And that missed that challenge came down and fell on my desk. And the charge was, let's put together a program that can increase the impact through commercialization of the basic research. And the reason it came to the SBIR program is because the SBIR program and NSF had been focused for the last 10 years or so prior to that, really, on the on the academic spinouts. And that was a new development on the SBIR program. And the genesis of the Ichor really comes out of the Small Business Innovation Research, program and experience. And I'm going to be talking about that. Throughout the presentation. I want to give you a little bit more on the founding principles, Christy's going to talk to you about the expansion and then Babu will bring it home with the impact. So the founding principles of Ichor were really, as I said, based upon the experience that we've had in the Small Business Innovation Research program at NSF, and many of you will know that the SBIR program started at the National Science Foundation in the in the 1980s. And has since expanded beyond NSF to include all federal agencies that have an extramural budget of over $100 million, which is just about all federal agencies. And the experience that we'd had at the SBIR program at NSF was really that taking the technology out of an academic lab is exceedingly difficult. And there was at the time, we had had a about 10 years of experience in doing this. And when we were starting to develop the ICORE program, we got a bunch of SBIR program managers together and asked the questions why, why is the new technology out of the lab so difficult? And this This question was asked in the spring of 2011, really before we started to develop any of the programs. And what we came up with was basically four reasons why technology taking technology out of a lab was so difficult. And I want to talk about these because this really is the the reason for the ICORE program and the genesis of the ICORE program harks back to these four reasons. First, what what we call the unknown. Second is what I call the confusion. The third is third party risk. And the fourth is misunderstanding. I'm not going to go into these in great detail. Today, I want to cover just one. But the key thing that I want to leave you with is that all four of these elements were the founding principles around which we built the the ICORE curriculum in which we built the ICORE program. And it's interesting too, for me to share with you that there was this foundation in the background derived from the SBIR program, so that you know where the ICORE what really was the the catalyst for the ICORE program. And so knowing that you can identify really where the the ICORE leads to the SBIR program, and beyond. So what I want to talk about for the next few minutes is really the first of these four. That's what I call the the unknown. This was the first one that we identified in the SBIR program as the reason why taking a technology out of the lab to increase the economic impact is so, so significant. So in order to dive deeper into this, I want to share with you a graph graphic that we use in the policy circles. And it's used in academic circles. And it's used in government circles to describe the technology innovation spectrum. This graph was first made famous by Angus King, and it's a graph of the resources available versus the level of discovery from level of development, excuse me, from discovery to commercialization. And we have academic research with the distribution that looks something like this on the left hand side and we have industrial research on the right hand side. And of course in the middle you have the famous valley of death. I'm sure everybody on this call is familiar with the valley of death. And I'm not going to go into great detail about about that valley of death and the reason why it exists. But you should know that it does. In fact, there are little slices of the valley, different segments, depending upon the industry that you're that you're talking in. But there is a valley of death and the idea is that And small businesses get across that valley of death using investors capital. And NSF has a research that focuses primarily on Discovery. And then NSF has the ICORE program, and, of course, the STTR. And the SBIR programs, because very big programs that are meant to launch companies across that valley of death, and then get those companies and onto the other side into commercialization, so that they can pay taxes, and generate revenue and hire employees and make economic impact. This is the engine of technology innovation spectrum, in the United States. It's the theoretical underpinnings around which we build all of our programs. But the reality is, is that it's not, doesn't look like this. Innovation is actually quite a bit different than a, this this type of smooth process. So unless we have academic research, and we have a bunch of small business, and we have the NSF and we have the ICORE, I could include NIH on the left hand side as well and Department of Energy science. But on the right hand side, we have something that really looks like this. And so this is the principal reason why taking the technology out of an academic lab is so hard, because you don't know what that right hand side looks like. And in fact, every innovation project that's ever been worked on, where you're taking technology and trying to apply it to a commercial opportunity has a right hand side that looks something like this. And that's the principal challenge. And so this is the reason why we develop the ICORE program, first and foremost, to address the unknowns on the right hand side. And the ICORE program essentially launches people into that unknown, but with to a toolset that is allows them to really assess what that commercialization resources available for commercial development and commercialization look like. So question is, how do we explore the unknown? And this was the question we asked the NSF as we started to develop the program? And the answer is, first, we look at the law that the following process gets it. Then we compute the consequences, compare those with results, nature, using observation, if it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. That's the key to science, doesn't matter how beautiful your guesses are, who wasn't made to guess if it disagrees with experiments wrong. That's all there is to it. And of course, this is a really famous quote, by Caltech, physicist, Richard Feynman. And it's basically the best description of the scientific process I've ever I've ever seen. It's very simple. And it's a really the core principle of Ichor. And we bake this into Ichor, without explicitly identifying it as what we were doing. And let me let me share with you what I mean by that. So we know that the unknown on the right hand side of that curve, right hand side of the previous graph, is really what needs to be explored using the principles of customer discovery, and the business model development. And we basically took the tools in the scientific process, and applied them to the unknowns on the commercialization effort using this as the laboratory notebook. So what I mean by that is the business model canvas is a very functionally very capable tool of assessing business opportunity. And it is the tool that we use and the ICORE as the fundamental element of the assessing that opportunity. And the the genesis of the business model canvas goes back to a gentleman named Alex Osterwalder who wrote a PhD thesis on on this framework. And the key thing is, is that this framework is the framework that is that can be used to assess about 80% of the, of the business challenges and risks. And so happens that this framework was being taught by a gentleman Steve Blank at Stanford, at the exact same time that we were looking for an exploring for an education framework for for the ICORE program. And so, at that point, we that was the serendipity. And we called up Steve and said, Steve, can you help us? We think that the process that you've you're developing here in this class of Stanford, is exactly the process that we want to deploy in the, in the this new program that we're developing called Ichor. And that process really is the scientific process applied to the business unknowns, and in this case, using the Business Model Canvas as the laboratory notebook and through the application of the customer discovery process, turn all the hypothesis that are involved in the your understanding of the business model into validated elements so that you can run your business on canvas before you want it on in reality. So that's the idea behind the very simple idea behind Ichor is that we're using the scientific principle, and the business model canvas as the laboratory notebook. And once you understand that, you can understand that the rest of the entire culture, and I do want to say that, like all innovations, the first response that we had was, yeah, that's interesting, but And so what we're going to get ready to hear in the next two speakers, Christie is going to talk about how the NIH has embraced the ICORE program to really use the business model canvas with slight refinements. And then Bob, who's going to talk about the outcomes from a historical perspective. But I do have to say that the very first response that we got from people and practitioners in the space was, yeah, but and the Yeah, but was it doesn't work for Department of Energy, it's not going to work for materials projects, it's not going to work for health care, it's not going to work for. And so our response was, actually it does work, you just have to make some modest refinements, and programs modeled off the Ichor shown here, Bob is going to talk a little bit more about these and when he when he talks in a few minutes. But I do want to share with you just some of the areas in which the ICORE program has spread. And talk to you next about a pilot program that was run at UC

Speaker 2  16:32  
UCSF, USC, University of California, San Francisco, in the spring of 2013. And at that point, we developed four tracks, using medical devices, therapeutics, diagnostics, and eHealth, for a life science program at UCSF, and Christie is going to talk about how NIH has taken this pilot, and really expanded it beyond all of our wildest expectations. And so with that, I'm going to hand it over to Christy, who will take it from there.

Speaker 3  17:05  
Thank you so much, Errol. And while we get our slides up for the next segment, I want to reflect back on these last 10 years of icorn is growth. And I think a major success of the program really has been its adoption across the federal government. The NIH as an early adopter made possible with inter agency collaboration really embraced the ICORE program and in by aligning it with with both agency and programmatic missions. And at the NIH, our mission really covers enhancing and enhancing health, and reducing illness and disability. And for those of us who work to build Icart, NIH, we were coming from the SBIR STTR world. And so a defining feature of the NIH s program is to engage small businesses, and specifically those who are SBIR and STTR awardees. So on the next slide, if you look at our mission, there's really a focus on empowering entrepreneurs in developing a strategic business model through the customer discovery process to meet importantly for us, unmet clinical needs. And so we hope and envision that through programs like or that we can start growing an innovation ecosystem where entrepreneurs its approach healthcare problems, through data driven decision making. And at the NIH, we are fortunate to be empowered to think openly about inclusivity in the biomedical workforce. And so that in that allows us to incorporate diversity in thought and in perspective and process for all aspects of the ICORE program, including the teams that come in the instructors who deliver the content, and the technologies that are being developed. And, and so for the ICORE program, you'll you'll hear a lot about this, but we try to practice what we preach in terms of pivoting. So if we go to the next slide, I really think about the ICORE at NIH program itself as a case study in pivoting and programming. And so this is where I'll pick up from where Errol left off in the spring of 2013. In the fall of 2013 is when I joined a federal service at the National Cancer Institute's SBIR Development Center. I was a part of a team that included Michael Weingarten, and Kurt's Jennifer, she and others. And we were really encouraged by what we had seen happening at the NSF, courtesy of Errol and others, and what they had done to build up the ICORE program. But what we didn't know was how to make it work for what we believed would be a very challenging niche, something for established small businesses in the life sciences where there's a lot of regulatory issues at hand. And yet at another fun federal funding agency, we didn't know how that would work out. And so we went straight to the source and reached out to our colleagues at the NSF Babu, Donna lard and Udall, Sal and others to get their help. And with their support, we were able to lay down the infrastructure and figured out how to make it work at the NIH. And so we launched our pilot program in 2014. And I'll be sharing some of the lessons we learned from that. Throughout the years we've made refinements beta program reboot in 2016, we continued expanding the program across the NIH, and the CDC, helping to create other flavors of programs for different kinds of researchers in the life sciences space. 2020 have brought more opportunity for for us and likely all of you to learn and adjust and, and for a program like the ICORE program, which is built so heavily on in person customer discovery interactions. 2020 was an was a very impactful year, we had to pivot and meet businesses where they were and at that time, it was online, because of the pandemic, of course, and so we pivoted as well, and we converted iCore to be a fully virtual program at that time. So but if we rewind and we go back to 2014. On the next slide, I'll sort of just highlight some of the things that we did in that program. This was built heavily and with a lot of things to our NSF colleagues. We structured the program very similar to similarly to how the NSF program is structured today, we put in milestones 100, interviews for the teams to go through. Because of the timing, we had created it to be a 10 week program. If you're familiar with the NIH, you'll know that we are 27 different institutes of health. And we have we had a pilot of for participating in our in our 2014 program. We had three tracks, and we use these and then doubt our technologies and our teams based on the areas of technology they're working in, and 2014 that was therapeutics, medical devices and diagnostics. And we were very thoughtful about how we would mix instructors and I think instructors really are are critical and major components for success for the ICORE NIH program. So we were mixing life science expertise with I wrote here Nin instructors, the National Innovation Network, those who were familiar with the ICORE curriculum and could teach it. And through running that pilot, we learned a lot. The first thing was that this could work. This could work for Life Sciences, the they saw that in the spring of 2013. But it could work at the NIH as well. We learned that 10 Weeks was really too long. I think for any of you who runs a an iCore program or a similar one. You may hear that teams are looking to get more time to complete all their 100 interviews. But we really thought 10 weeks is too long as you can really compress a lot of learning into less time. For us, we did learn that integration of instructors with domain expertise was critical for building the program into something that could be impactful for our life science technologies. And so and we also learned that small businesses in the phase one stage still have a lot of space and room to learn. And so you know, the success of what we had seen in the NSF program with academics was already established, we we understood that we were still questioning whether those who had who had made that go decision to create a company whether or not they would learn something from the ICORE program. And we've we we found they did. And so when we, on the next slide, if you when we looked at how those teams were working out what they learned through the program, one of the nice things we saw was that there was learning that was happening, as I mentioned, we query them and this was done with our with support from Venture Well, our partners there to query them about their learnings before and after the program. And we see that before there was, you know, some level of of understanding. But really, after the program, folks had moved into having a greater understanding of what their their learnings were. And on the next slide, something that was interesting to us, that we didn't anticipate was the level of Life Science commercialization knowledge they had coming in, and how much they learned after those weeks. And so for us, it was a little bit of a surprise, these companies went ahead and started a biotech company, but they didn't necessarily have a large, deep breadth of understanding for concepts like medical reimbursement, and regulatory strategy. And I think it might be fair to say that even those of us who are in the space may at times still find those areas to be a little bit of a black box. And so being able to provide learning for the companies for these teams, and the NIH program was a plus for us. And so when we looked at the next slide, what we decided what we learned was, how to structure the program. And so today's NIH program is structured very similar to the NSF program. With a few key caveats. In the NSF program, our teams are distributed in To track rooms, and that's based on the technology types that come in. And we've found as an evolution over time this this was a bit of a surprise for us for me is that we have therapeutics, teams that come in, we have a mix of device and diagnostics, product that projects and products that come in, and then an increasing number of digital health tools and research tools that are coming in. And so this is an evolution we've seen, in even just the last three years, a lot more digital health tools are coming into the to the programs. But the curriculum really is the ICORE base of customer discovery of utilizing the business model canvas and applying it to the life science space. Our program is no longer 10 weeks, we've made it into an eight week program, we still have the kickoff Weekly Webinar classes. And then the lessons learned at the end, which is in line with I think a lot of what you will recognize from the NSF program. On the next slide does show a little bit about what the team structure looks like on an NIH team. Similar to the NSF program, we have three, three people on teams. And this is in part to support the amount of work that has to happen over the two months of going into the ICORE program. But because these are established small businesses, the sort of

Speaker 3  26:24  
relationship and hierarchy and power differential between team members is on a different kind of scale. And so we make sure that a C level officer someone who has decision making authority is part of the team, we make sure that a technical lead is part of the team. Sometimes that's the PII but sometimes the PII is also the CEO, because many of you will notice that in a small business, you wear many hats, and so we make sure that someone who is technically knowledgeable to help carry out customer discoveries, so part of that team, and then a really integral role on that team is also the industry experts. So teams are expected to go out and find someone who can augment their team and provide the kind of expertise and background to help them understand what the what the industry is looking like and help them sort of demystify what they're hearing during their customer discovery interviews. And for the industry experts who come on the team into the ICORE program, we hear a lot of great feedback on what they learned because these are seasoned veteran business development folks, and many of them say that if they had a program like the ICORE, earlier in their, in their lifetimes, as entrepreneurs, the trajectory for the development of their products could have taken a very different turn. So it's very interesting to hear that on the next slide, just here in a table format, sort of contrast these two these two programs. So you'll see here that the ICORE NIH program is really focused on on the biomedical programs, where the NSF is really more of an agnostic technology wise program. In terms of eligibility. The NIH program is focused and constrained in some ways to active phase one awardees who are in the SBIR STTR programs, as opposed to the icon, the NSF program, where having academic lineage from NSF or other funding agencies will provide eligibility into the program. One of the things that's also differences, the cadence in the way the programs are offered at the NIH, we can provide two cohorts a year compared to the NSF Which ones 14 And so the fact that they've hit some great milestones and having run the program is a testament to their experience and being able to provide this kind of programming at a at a consistent level. The course structure is very similar. And as NIH is eight weeks NSF is seven, we've still got those magic 100 interviews that teams need to go through. Again, as I said, the NIH program is tracked teams are split into cohorts that they travel with during their eight week experience. As I understand it, the NSF program provides a little bit more shuffling. And so teams get to see a lot of different kinds of technologies, and learn about the impacts and questions that come up for those kinds of technologies as they go through the program. At the bottom here, I can't stress enough how important we've found that the instructors play in success for the ICORE program at the NIH. We've designed it so that we have pairs of instructors for each of the tracks. It's someone with the technical expertise in the in the life science sector space, as well as an instructor who is really deeply familiar with that iCore curriculum. Although I would say that we've been extremely lucky all these years to have all six of our instructors really be experts and really hold tightly, a great knowledge of how to deliver the ICORE curriculum and how to support teams as they go through the program. Now, on the next slide, I want to provide a little Little bit of the six lessons learned by the NIH to promote team success in the ICORE program. And this is sort of condensed from some of the messaging that we provide teams as they come into the ICORE. at NIH program, and really to, to drive success. It's really about setting expectations for the teams, we tell them as we try to onboard them, there's going to be a lot of time, a lot of effort, it'll be a lot of fast pace. These are things that Bob, you told me when we were building the program back in 2013. And we continue to transmit that other things that really help our building a shared mission, understanding between the companies and between the NIH, and also supporting the teams in being able to be open for learning and articulating our support from the NIH for the teams to pivot. And that's especially true if what they're learning and AI for can provide them in demonstrating more valuable value to the companies and value to the patients and the beneficiaries of the technologies that are developing. So on the next slide, you know, part of that means acknowledging the changes where they are, they are all SBIR STTR phase one awardees, but many of them are new startups. Some of them are small businesses, but are not startups. Some of them might be in fundraising mode. So they might also be divided in their attention. Of course, they come with different kinds of technologies. But the messaging we tell them is that the NIH knows that teams are at different stages. And that we still encourage them to use iCore as a time for growth, exploration, and education. And that helps support them as they go through the eight weeks and go through those 100 interviews. Now on the next slide, I want to the next three slides, I want to quickly go over some of the examples of pro cut teams that have come through the program because I think they really just help illustrate the kinds of technologies that can come into the program, and how they can evolve and develop over time. So the first one I'm going to share with you is the specifics. And this team came through the ICORE program in our pilot 2014 program, they were developing a peptide therapeutic that was going to address vascularization in cancer. And what they learned during the ICORE program was was really, there were really some other high need areas in vascular disease where they could make more immediate impact. And so what they did was they pivoted now they pivoted away from the National Cancer Institute and are now supporting missions for the National Eye Institute. But really their ability to take their asset and make a chain of a positive clinical impact for macular edema is a big one, I think for the NIH as a whole. And for patients who can benefit from these technologies. So this is a company it's DC located. They've raised $35 million in support of their technology since they went through the ICO program. On the next slide, I have another company that went through the program in 2018. This is metal, they're from the Bay Area. And what they had was a tech software app that could help connect cancer patients with cancer caregivers, and provide really real time support so that cancer so that cancer patients could stay healthy, and well enough to continue working on and stay enrolled in clinical trials. Now, what they've done since then, is they've been able to take what they learned through the ICORE program, and really take stock of what was happening around them and in 2020, really in 2019. But through 2020 Because of the COVID pandemic, they were able to leverage their technology that was NIH funded pivot based on what they've learned through iCore. And really develop a new app that supports social distance clinical trial enrollment, and in a world where it's been so difficult to connect patients to caregivers, this technology has really made a positive impact. And they recently closed a Series C funding round. And so we're really excited to see that the IFO program can help continue moving technologies forward beyond the eight weeks of high core and to really benefit patients. The last example I want to share with you is vivo Biosciences. And this is another team that went through our program in 2014. And I really liked this one because it was an academic PII from the University of Alabama, Birmingham. And this, this professor, he split out his technology into vivo biosciences, he was wearing the the pi hat, the CEO hat, he really wanted to take his technology, which is a 3d matrix for for growing cells and organs and tissues. And really get it out into a place where it could be developed and distributed and used as a research tool. And so that was their main goal during Ico was to understand who were the key partners, and they were able to do that. And that I think is in 2016. They were acquired by life Net Health and Virginia. And now that product is being sold in us. And so that academic pie, wore the hat of CEO for a short time, but knew that that wasn't the kind of hat they really wanted to wear. And so continuing to work at life Net Health, as the chief scientist was a way to carve out a continuing research career that benefits science moving forward. And the win is that the technology continues to be used as a pot of positive impact for the field of research and development. So, in closing, I just want to fall out on a close with a little bit of the impact of iCore at NIH, and this is pulled out from the 2021 biannual report that the NSF just put out on iCore. And you can see that our numbers, you'll get to see some of the NSF ones, but our numbers are pretty humble. But we've run more than 200 teams through the ICORE program at NIH, we're very proud of that. We've been very thoughtful about being able to encourage women and others who are traditionally underrepresented in the life sciences space to engage in the ICORE program, as well as SBIR and STTR, we see those numbers represented, which is a great thing for us. And of course, the subsequent funding is one way to measure the impact of iCore. And, and since we started the program in 2014, these 200 teams have been able to pull in more than $400 million. And so just one way to think about the impact of iCore. Of course, these continue to ripple out for the next 10 years beyond. But with that, I'm going to stop here and pass it over to Bob Whoo.

Unknown Speaker  36:29  
You're on mute.

Speaker 4  36:38  
I no longer work for NSF. And so what I'm going to do is offer my personal perspectives, and also share information that is totally public.

Speaker 1  37:05  
If you click back on your slide deck, it should lead to advance sometimes Zoom is tricky with where your houses. So they against me, if you click on the slides, and then try again. Got it? Got it.

Speaker 4  37:21  
So how do I go back to the okay. So this particular slide really summarizes some of the key outcomes since the inception of the program. Now, I'm not going to dwell on every one of these. If you click on the link that is shown at the end of the slide, it gives you a lot more detailed information on every one of these items. But I do want to take the opportunity to highlight three items here. For example, the very first one where they talk about the number of teams trade. And again, this is strictly from the NSF, from the NSF iCore program 19 108 teams through 2020. And please understand that, you know, the three individuals on each team, and sometimes teams come in with four or five members. So if you multiply this number by three, you are talking about, you know, almost close to 6000 unique individuals who have gone to the ICO tree. And this, of course includes the faculty members, the entrepreneurial leader, the students and mentors. as Erin mentioned earlier, in February, NSF celebrated the 100th cohort, I would have loved to have been there but that's okay. Startups creative 1036. In terms of the funding raised, this includes fonts, both from the private sector as well as the public sector. And of course, people are aware of nodes and sites. And then the biggest change that has occurred within the last year or so, is they no longer NSF is no longer going to have the notes and sites. But they have created a new model called the hub model, which is a more diverse and inclusive and all aspects. Okay, and we'll also talked about the other federal agencies, including NIH, Krista Canaria, your recipe. So the aid agencies that have signed MOU memorandum of understanding with NSF, and now they have begun to send teams to the national iCore program hosted by NSF. There's also a state partnership called iCore, at Ohio, where the state of Ohio really acts like NSF gives the money to the faculty members and against a team of three that goes through the program. Now, I do want to mention something that I couldn't add last night because I just got the information late yesterday that the ICORE site at the Missouri University of Science and Technology also received funding from the state $100,000 in 2017 and $100,000, in 2018, to take the ICO side program across the state, so it's not identical to the ICO at Ohio program, but there are many similarities. And of course, NSF also has a signed memorandum of understanding the science foundation Ireland. And besides these, although there are no established partnerships, kind of see, very much like the NSF agency in Mexico has established the program modeled after the ICO program, South Korea has done the same thing. And the incubator program and it draws is also very much like the ICO program. And the money for the incubator program comes directly from the dashboard, the foundation. The impact of NSF, I call it the concepts learned from the ICO program, have also been incorporated into programs within NSF. And one of the divisions the division of industrial integration partnerships in the Engineering Directorate has these various programs that are you CRC partnership for innovation, and the SBIR. And so in the IOC s program, if you win an award, you have to go to an IU CIC customer discovery boot camp, because it's all about industry relevant research. And you have to know how to articulate the value proposition of your technology, and so on so forth. And the same thing for partnership for innovation beat the odd bootcamp that must be attended by all phase one, SBIR STTR awardees. And then of course, the iCall pilot program for SBIR STTR awardees, that was initiated in 2019. And again, occurred in 2020. The other comments I want to make. So for example, here, there's another program called goalie grant opportunity for academic liaison with industry, which is also about industry relevant research. So my responsibility as a senior scientist at UW Milwaukee, is to spur research innovation. So I work with a lot of faculty and students. And when it comes to working with industry, one of the things I've tried to do and continues to do is to educate these faculty members, you know, how to interview potential companies, you know, to find out what their unmet and underserved needs are, so that they can better framed projects. And the other one is idea to impact, which is really a program at the impact at the impact Center at the University of Pittsburgh, which too, is modeled after the ICORE program. And it's meant more for assistive health technologies. So what has been the impact of entrepreneurship training? Well, one of them is a decreased risk averse culture. And I have to say this very clearly, this is more so amongst the students than with faculty members. And, and you know, you can't pay the faculty member, they say, No, they're busy doing other things. And we just don't take as much risk as the students want to are willing to. There's an increased clarity on search versus execution, there's a clear understanding now, you know, once they complete the program, and as they continue with their startups, or whatever the venture might be, they understand that search implies looking for the right business model, or the right value proposition versus scaling up the business model without any evidence, they also have a clear understanding of the difference between invention and innovation. As Jeff Nicholson from three amset invention implies translating money to knowledge, and innovation is just the reverse. I think the faculty members and the teams that go through this Ico program, now they have a better appreciation as to how challenging it is to innovate something to create value, and make money from that. Many faculty members have a clear change in research outlook, they're going from fundamental to not totally use inspired research, but to some degree use inspired research. And in this regard, I must say that, you know, some of the faculty members, even those who have completed the training, where they reached out to me and one of the questions I asked, So how is it affected you? And they say no, it's funny, but when I used to do research before, I never cared about asking questions, you know, I just did the research came up with an idea and worked on a research project. But now I talked to not 100 different people but at least five people and ask them you know, do you really care so this a change in output? increased uncertainty tolerance. What I mean by this now they can you know, definitely they're in a better position to work on their high uncertainty conditions. They can in a frame their ideas, rough ideas in a good enough so that they can test their underlying assumptions. And then of course, the startup creations and follow on funding, increase collaboration with industry, the Last two bullet points are very important. Now, the entrepreneurial curricula developed that to the best of my knowledge had been developed thus far by mostly the mentors, because you know, these are serial mentors, entrepreneurs, and they have a lot of experience. So they've either modified an existing curriculum, or they have truly developed new curricula. And the last thing that really needs a lot of attention, because people don't talk about it too much, is a lot of the students don't necessarily join startups or create their own startups. They go and, you know, go join large corporations. And they themselves are reported to me and to Errol and I'm sure to others, that look, if nothing else, I am in a much better position now how to interview. And some of the people I have met, honestly, and I've seen them that is to me, they were so shy that they were so afraid, paranoid of interviews, and now they're doing a much better job. So thanks to this program.

Speaker 4  46:01  
Now, success factors for academic spin offs, and it doesn't matter to the faculty starting or the spoon starting. So it kind of applies to both parties. Definitely the founding person and who is the founder, and the team he or she has, you know, do they have good mentors good, do their trusted advisors, are they agile, and what I mean by that is not just a know how, but the ability to learn and to pivot when it's necessary. adapting to changing culture, they understand, they have to understand that, hey, I no longer can operate as a scientist or a researcher. But now I have the role of an entrepreneur, I have to take risk. And I have to be able to work in a chaotic environment, then, of course, access to university resources. It's not just taxes, but having and maintaining a good relationship with the Technology Transfer Office, okay. And then, of course, access to programs and campus, access to external resources in a financial capital, acquiring the first customers like the early adopters, I mean, you have no idea how the early adopters can be of help, because they can give very constructive and candid feedback to the teams, not only in regard to the project, but also perhaps early access to distribution channels. And of course, the business model has to be successful in a good innovative model, decrease institutional and regional barriers. And when I say about institutional barriers, like no equity, no inequalities in gender, race, etc. And by regional barrier in one example, is to be able to encourage faculty to it know, to create economic development help with creating economic development, alumni network is very helpful when it comes to students starting companies, and this entrepreneurial self efficacy and having the confidence even in in a when conditions are very uncertain, to be able to have that confidence and to be able to proceed. And the last slide is not another lesson, I'm sorry. This is Hold on a second about notes and Aiko sites, you know, what are some of the positive things that are coming out of the notes and site. One is very common and enhances campus awareness and interest in entrepreneurial activities. The other one, and this is really, it's very nice, steady diffusion of cold customer discovery to the campus research community to be able to make cold calls, especially during the pandemic period. Can you imagine that now they have to pick up the phone and call and say, Hey, can I do an interview with you. So this is great, new industry connections, partners. And the other thing is, everyone is realizing that the program is not just for startups, you know, if you if you just submitted a disclosure, or even when you were conceptualizing what might be disclosed, you can just go through this program. And that's what's going to make a stronger team also, that life changing experience for many participants. And the remote whether you like it or not, the remote training has been very good specially when it comes to underserved regions in a way people have difficulty with traveling etc. And the other one is very understanding, you know, increase the awareness of funding opportunities, and not just federal funding, you know, for example, Adventure Web and there's so many other organizations that offer opportunities that all you have to do is apply if you're lucky, you'll get the funding. gave last one Come on. Okay, some of the challenges that nodes and sites continue to face are recruiting teams Okay. And the other one is the lack of commitment and support from university administration and more. So, and again, this is my personal observation, more so for the sites than for the nodes, because the nodes, you know, are much bigger scale, right. So, one of the things that the notes and the site, especially the sites have sets that are suggesting is, it would really help if NSF could enunciate more clearly, that look, you guys, meaning that university administrators need to provide more commitment and support to these programs, if you really liked the program, they do provide some support, and they would like that much firmer statement coming from and as their lack of recognition of faculty engagement and ion effect promotion and tenure. This is one of the things that keep faculty from attending iCore, especially at the local level, okay, this will be incentive, because this particular item continues to be a topic in, you know, that this one, the foundation symposium that I've been attending for the last two years, it keeps coming up, lack of follow on programs to help early stage ventures, I am aware of a couple, but not too many, compensating mentors for their time, that's a big deal. And many of the mentors as, as good as they are, they're also saying, Look, I'm retired. And if you really want my help, I would like to be compensated. Now, mentors do get compensated for their travel, but they're talking about some extra money in their hands also. So that that would be helpful. Lack of regional pools of mentors willing to work with teams and underserved regions. The next one is making exploration of economic and social impact of researcher expected part of the PhD process. And by that what I mean, this, look, the people who are going for the PhD don't necessarily have to have a startup. But at least when they're working on a PhD, they should be able to at least articulate the impact of the research on society, they need to understand how the research might and be able to explain how their research might impact society. And the last one is that the rules around eligibility for the National Ico program hosted by NSF, they keep shifting from time to time. So as a result of that many notes and and he knows that sites are facing challenges in terms of what should the team be really comprised on. So these are some other challenges in in 15. This is all I can cover. So again, this is my last slide. And thanks to all of you for listening.

Speaker 1  52:46  
Thank you all so much. It looks like we had one question come through the q&a and attendees. Don't forget that you can absolutely type and submit your questions for our panelists. Like Christy was what first one is for you? Why did the NIH focus on Phase One SBIR awardees instead of pre SBIR companies?

Speaker 3  53:05  
That's a great question. And it really boils down to who saw what NSF was doing with IPR. And it was folks in the SBIR offices at the NIH and and we saw the success happening there. And we said, we think that this could work over here where we are and we were in the SBIR STTR world. And so when we piloted the program, that was the thrust of our of our structure was to make this available for SBIR and STTR awardees. Of course, we were really enthused by what you know, Arielle and others had done at NSF to show the pre SBIR community would benefit. But what we also wanted to test and as part of what Babu and others were supporting us to do was to see and confirm and validate whether or not SBIR and STTR awardees could also benefit. And that turned out to to be true.

Speaker 1  53:58  
Thank you. While we wait for any other questions to come in, do any I know you've all just shared so much good information? Is there any kind of big takeaways you want folks to remember from this, anything had a lightbulb moment while someone else was presenting that you wanted to shout out anything like that?

Speaker 4  54:20  
I can start out it all, since I'm involved in university activities. And just for the time being, I'm not going to talk about graduate students, you know, I don't want to ignore the undergraduate students because they are extremely willing to learn and to pivot. And one of the things that I'm trying to do Sammy and Errol and Christie can chime in here is, you know, as you know, in the senior year, they work on senior design projects, right. But instead of doing that, you know, one of the suggestions I'm in the process of making is why not evaluate patterns that are now that can be revived next There's an opportunity now for the VA to assess the market for that particular technology. Why not have interested students work with the business model canvas and just focus on the value proposition and the customer segment? And kind of see what they can come up with, you know, that something need to be modified? Can a new technology be developed? Or can the existing technology be modified, so that they themselves can become aware of it? Let me cut to the chase, this will help them get this entrepreneurial mindset that we are trying to incorporate. So that that's one of the things that would help.

Speaker 3  55:44  
I'll add something there. One of the things that I think about is what the impact beyond 10 years is going to look like and what we'll see in terms of the technologies that are supported, but more importantly, in terms of the the the individuals, the people who have gone through the ICO program, what is our what are the fabulous new technologies that are yet yet to be? What are those going to look like? And how much will we be able to credit back to having gone through a program like the I for I'm really excited to sort of track and see what what the next 10 years bring.

Speaker 2  56:18  
Let me let me pile on top of that the current director of the National Science Foundation was an early iCore. recipient. And so he brings to NSF and the National Science Board the experience that he had in going through the the ICORE program. And I can say full throated Lee, that the one of the goals of the ICORE program was to really bring experienced PIs to the customer discovery process, so that as they move forward in their research applications, they can really provide a user centric focus on their research, especially around the area of broader impacts. And I can say that, we can claim that as a victory as well, emerging, but it's it's very compelling to see proposals that come across the NSF staff that are informed by a customer discovery effort.

Speaker 1  57:19  
We did have one more question come through, and the q&a submitted from an attendee asking are you able to talk about any of the expected changes that will accompany be expected new funding and nodes later this year?

Speaker 3  57:39  
That would be under the purview of the National Science Foundation. And as we don't have a representative to speak on that. It's too bad. We don't have anything to share there.

Speaker 1  57:49  
We'll have to do a follow up. Thank you for covering that one. Christy. And Christy, it looks like in the chat. This was a specific NIH follow up question. You indicated that you and your teams have raised about 400 million, which is an average of 2 million. Do you know how many teams raised money? So

Speaker 3  58:12  
that's a great point. And I'm so I'm glad someone was able to do the back of the envelope math there. I want to stress that those not that that 400 million is a combination of federal and private funding. So I would I don't have the numbers in front of me. But I could say, you know, more than half of those teams have received follow on funding from the federal government as part of their fallen funding. But that, uh, there are as in many portfolios, you know, your your high performers like the metal, who pull in 91 million, or the skeptics that pull in 35, and others who are, you know, pulling in those? So the average I would not say is it there's there's a great spread. But I think what's important, one thing I can say is that one of the things we saw from our pilot program was that there was also a stimulation in teams coming back and applying for new phase one funding, because they had learned something during their eight weeks of iCore. That that led them down another path for opportunity to really make more clinical impact. And so the program does help stimulate teams to think more objectively and strategically about how they can they can they can provide value.

Speaker 1  59:25  
Thank you. It looks like that is all the questions that have come through. So unless the three of you have any closing last words of wisdom you want to share, I'm happy to take us home. All righty. So on behalf of autumn I want to thank each of you for this informative discussion and thank all of our attendees for joining today. As a reminder, a recording of this webinar along with a PDF handouts of the slides you'll have access to all of those links will be available for viewing within a couple of days in the autumn Learning Center. And you can also check out any of autumns other past sessions if you may. We have missed them and access those in your learning center on demand as well. Please remember to complete the webinar evaluation which will open when you close out of this webinar that helps us serve your needs in the future and we appreciate your feedback in advance. And I want to thank you all again for joining us and I hope you have a great rest of your day.

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