I-Corps Hub West Region

University of Utah PIVOT Center is proud to be an affiliate-level founding member of the I-Corps Hub: West Region, one of only five National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (“I-Corps”) Hubs. This Hub is a partnership of eight of the top research universities across the Western United States including the University of Southern California (Hub Director), the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of California-Los Angeles, the California Institute of Technology, the Colorado School of Mines, the University of California-Riverside, the University of New Mexico and the University of Utah.

Together, our consortium will provide experiential education to support the development and launch of deep technology startups. The Hub will engage the diverse and innovative talent within the Western United States. Startup teams that complete our regional program will be eligible for sponsorship to apply to the National I-Corps Teams Program.

Please visit the I-Corps Hub West Region website for more information: https://icorpshubwest.org

About I-Corps

The National Science Foundation (NSF) launched Innovation Corps (I-Corps) in 2011 to increase U.S. economic competitiveness, enhance academic and industry partnerships, and commercialize cutting-edge technology. I-Corps provides a thorough experiential learning opportunity for entrepreneurial minded faculty, students, and researchers to assess their invention's market potential through a customer discovery process.

More than 5,800 innovators, 1900 teams and 1280 institutions have been trained through NSF's I-Corps program. Training focuses on identifying and interviewing potential customers in order to develop a value proposition. At the local level, that involves brief, two-and three-week efforts that mix classroom-style instruction with virtual customer interviews. Subsequently, teams can be recommended to the National I-Corps program.