I-Corps Regional Course for Startups

 hosted by Syracuse University & RIT

February - March 2027

Course Overview In this month long virtual course (February 8 - March 10), startup founders working on a deep tech innovation “get out of your comfort zone” and talk with customers (virtually) to identify the best product-market fit. You may apply with a team of 1-3 people. Teams may not split attendance between members. Please only include the members of your team that will be fully participating in the course. All team members are required to attend and participate fully in every course session and complete all coursework. This is important for two reasons: 1) Course learning is cumulative 2) Only team members who personally complete the full course can be considered for NSF lineage and a nomination for national I-Corps Teams

Application Closes: Wednesday, January 13, 2027

Course Dates

Course opens for pre-course work: Monday, February 8, 2027 Session 1: Monday, February 15 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM Session 2a: Wednesday, February 17 TBD (1:1 meetings) Session 2b: Friday, February 19 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM Session 3: Monday, February 22 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM Session 4: Wednesday, February 24 TBD (1:1 meetings) Session 5a: Wednesday, March 3 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Session 5b: Monday, March 8 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM Session 6: Wednesday, March 10 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM *There will be scheduled office hours meetings with teams and instructors between sessions 1 & 2b and between sessions 3 & 5a. Meeting times will depend on the availability of the teams and the instructors.
Application Questions
Please address the questions below. If your responses involve non-public details, work with your technology transfer office before submitting to ensure all confidential, proprietary, and potentially patentable information is properly safeguarded prior to disclosure.



Please address the following: What does your technology do? How does it work? Why do you believe it is innovative? What have you built so far? 

Describe the customer need that you believe will be met by the proposed innovation.






Who needs your solution and is willing to pay for it?




Entrepreneurial Lead Information
The Entrepreneurial Lead could be a Post-Doctoral scholar, graduate or other student, or other personnel with relevant knowledge of the technology, who might like to lead the team in the I-Corps Teams national program. See here for more information.





N/A if no members of your team are students, faculty, staff, or researchers at a university.


N/A if your team is not affiliated with an incubator/accelerator.
Team Member Information
Please only include the members of your team that will be fully participating in the course in this section. 










Advisors and Other Colleagues






By selecting "Yes," you are agreeing to provide the National Science Foundation (NSF) and IN I-Corps Hub with data about your team, business activities, and agreeing to meet all regional course requirements below. We promise to use this data to fulfill our reporting requirements to our funders; any public reporting will be at an aggregated level that does not identify individual companies’ data or information. 1. All team members listed above will attend and participate fully in every course session. 2. All team members will complete the required coursework.                3. All team members can expect to spend ~30 hours on the course, including course sessions, assignments, and customer discovery interviews. 4. All team members will complete pre and post surveys from the Hub and NSF related to course assessment, demographic information and economic impact. While each team member is required to complete these surveys, there is always an option to answer with “I prefer not to answer”.

Contact Information