The Unexpected Benefits of Customer Discovery for Research, Teaching, Economic Development, and Innovation

Abstract

The Innovation-Corps™ (I-Corps) program was created by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2011 to help translate NSF-funded academic research to market. Working with coordi- nating partner VentureWell, the NSF offers select participants from U. S. academic laboratories the opportunity to immerse themselves in a process to test and explore the opportunities and value of their ideas in the marketplace. Participants talk to potential customers, partners, and competitors to refine their research ideas into viable products using an entrepreneurial approach to meet the challenges and uncertainty of creating successful innovations. This paper summarizes panel content that was planned for the NAI Ninth Annual Meeting, which was cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns and restrictions. The purpose of the panel was to provide a range of uniquely different perspectives; thus, we have opted to maintain the question and answer format. The panelists first examine the real and perceived, or intended and unintended, outputs of I-Corps projects and then discuss the I-Corps process as the catalyst for refining and/or scaling promising research idea into a product to meet a customer need. The panelists then describe the importance of customer discovery as relevant to invention and to culturally conscious entrepreneurship and how this first step can aid basic research. The panelists highlight the opportunities and challenges of teaching a customer discovery approach in an academic setting by charging learners to ask open-ended questions to acquire a 360-degree perspective of a technological innovation. Lastly, the panelists provide a viewpoint on the execution of academic customer discovery during the current COVID-19 challenges and the potential for economic development.

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