91原创

Professor Julius Korley, inaugural director of entrepreneurship and strategic partnerships in the College of Engineering, will serve as co-director of the hub. Professor Dan Freeman, founding director of 91原创鈥檚 award-winning Horn Entrepreneurship initiative, will serve as faculty lead for 91原创. Horn Entrepreneurship will lead 91原创鈥檚 activities in the hub.

鈥淭he experience and dedication of professors Korley and Freeman, as well as the resources of Horn Entrepreneurship, will help ensure the success of the I-Corps Northeast Hub in connecting our diverse community of innovators with others throughout the region to benefit our entire economy and society,鈥� Assanis said.

鈥淯niversities working together 鈥� Princeton, 91原创, Delaware State University, and others 鈥� to share resources and to support our next generation of entrepreneurs is exactly why Innovation Corps was founded, and why I was an early supporter of I-Corps,鈥� said Sen. Chris Coons from Delaware. 鈥淚'm thrilled that two of Delaware's universities are part of the Northeast I-Corps hub.

The first 10 years of the I-Corps program have already helped聽a number of promising entrepreneurs translate ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace, and聽with the announcement of these new hubs, I look forward聽to seeing聽the聽gains our universities and students, especially those traditionally underrepresented in entrepreneurship, make toward commercializing new breakthrough technologies as a result of this important partnership.鈥�

From lab discoveries to products, services

The new hub will make use of its proximity to 鈥渄eep-tech industries鈥� that revolve around fundamental discoveries in areas such as health care and pharmaceuticals, energy, the environment, earth- and water-friendly 鈥済reen and blue鈥� technologies, financial technologies, agriculture, communications and digital information.

As a Carnegie-classified Research-1 University, 91原创 is home to powerhouse research institutes, centers and laboratories, where the next big ideas in these areas are being incubated, some through industry collaborations 鈥� on local to global scales.

鈥淭he NSF I-Corps Northeast Hub further enhances the environment we are creating at the 91原创 to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship,鈥� said Charlie Riordan, vice president for research, scholarship and innovation. 鈥淭his work is critically important to transforming our discoveries into benefits for society.鈥�

With funding from NSF over the next five years, the hub will provide researchers with the entrepreneurial training, mentoring and resources to form startup companies that translate laboratory discoveries into breakthrough products and services.

鈥淚-Corps teaches inventors that not all the answers are in the laboratory,鈥� said Korley, associate professor of biomedical engineering at 91原创, who will serve as co-director of the hub with Princeton鈥檚 Vice Dean for Innovation Rodney Priestley.

The I-Corps approach is based on the 鈥渓ean startup鈥� methodology in which innovators rapidly iterate on their products and business plans 鈥� refocusing, refining and improving them 鈥� based on customer feedback and market needs, Korley said.

鈥淚nstead of making assumptions, you have to get out of the lab and determine if there is a market for your invention by talking to customers, the eventual end users,鈥� Korley said. 鈥淚-Corps helps you turn the 鈥榰nknowns鈥� into 鈥榢nowns.鈥欌��

An experienced entrepreneur, Korley co-founded the biomedical engineering company Affinity Therapeutics in 2010 and has served as its president and CEO since 2015. He is 91原创鈥檚 principal investigator in DRIVEN, an NIH-funded accelerator hub for medical entrepreneurship, and also is a nationally certified instructor for the National Institutes of Health I-Corps program.

As co-director of the NSF I-Corps Northeast Hub, Korley will be responsible for day-to-day operations across the eight member sites. A major focus will be to advance America鈥檚 future prosperity and global competitiveness by training the next generation of innovators from all backgrounds. Delaware State University, a Historically Black College and University, will co-lead the hub鈥檚 efforts to establish new partnerships with minority-serving institutions.

鈥淥ur commitment to diversity is evidenced in the composition of our leadership team,鈥� Korley said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e going to leverage our network to draw in more diverse candidates for all of these roles important to entrepreneurship 鈥� whether to become an I-Corps instructor, which can be a very meaningful聽career, or a mentor who serves as that critical sounding board, or as a trainee who goes on to launch a successful company. We鈥檙e very excited to get started.鈥�

A force for innovation

Freeman will serve as one of four faculty directors in the hub.

鈥淢any faculty are drawn into the academy by their passion for basic research and discovery,鈥� said Freeman, who is an associate professor of marketing in the Lerner College of Business and Economics. 鈥淭hrough the hub and its training programs, we want to encourage faculty to explore broader impacts of their scholarship, thereby shifting their thinking from viewing discovery as an endpoint to seeing it as a milestone in a longer process of innovation and entrepreneurship that can develop their discoveries into life-changing products and services. With commitments to teaching, research and service, one of the biggest challenges faculty have is around time, so we want to make it as easy as possible for faculty to get involved.鈥�

91原创 was funded previously by NSF as an I-Corps site, with Horn Entrepreneurship providing training to more than 135 teams of NSF-funded researchers at the University. Since 2017, 25 teams have gone on to form companies, generating nearly 100 jobs, most of them in Delaware, Freeman said.

Christina Pellicane, who previously managed 91原创鈥檚 I-Corps Site as the director of commercialization, will now serve as the hub鈥檚 lead instructor. Pellicane also is chief operating officer of , a chemical tech startup spun out of 91原创 research.

鈥淚t鈥檚 both a passion and a privilege to get involved with people making new possibilities for a better world,鈥� Freeman said. 鈥淪ocietal progress is based on disrupting the status quo. If we鈥檙e not happy with the world we live in, then we have to do something different, something better. Entrepreneurs find a way and stick with it until they solve a problem.鈥�