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NSF I-Corps program

NSF I-Corps program. Presentation to the IAB Meeting Karuna P Joshi June 13, 2013. NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program. Set of activities and programs that prepare researchers to extend their focus beyond the laboratory.

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NSF I-Corps program

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  1. NSF I-Corps program Presentation to the IAB Meeting KarunaP Joshi June 13, 2013

  2. NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program • Set of activities and programs that prepare researchers to extend their focus beyond the laboratory. • Teaches grantees to identify valuable product opportunities that can emerge from academic research, and offers entrepreneurship training to student participants. • Eligibility • PI Must have an active NSF award • Must have I-Corps team in place at initial contact

  3. Curriculum • Based on hypothesis-driven business-model discovery (pioneered by Stanford and Steve Blank) • Focuses on addressing market risk • Requires getting out of the lab to meet potential clients • Mandatory for all I-Corps participants • Attend introductory 3-day workshop • Participate in 5 follow-on webinars with team presentations/ interactions • Attend 2 days of demos/lessons learned

  4. I-Corps Teams • I-Corps Teams have three essential members • Principal investigator • Entrepreneurial lead • Mentor • Two rounds of interviews for acceptance • NSF Project Managers • I-Corps training team • Highly competitive (acceptance rate ~ 18%)

  5. UMBC Team Members • Entrepreneur Lead : Dr. Karuna P Joshi • Research Assistant Professor, UMBC • Product Idea based on EL’s PhD Research • Research Focus : Cloud Services automation, Cloud Usability (with NIST) • Primary Investigator: Dr. Yelena Yesha • Professor , UMBC • Research Focus : Personalized Medicine, Cloud Computing, Databases • Advisor to EL • Team Mentor: Lily Bengfort • Founder of CenGen, VP DRS Technologies • Mentor at Path Forward Center, • Founding Member of Howard County Technology Council • Trainer in the ACTIVATE program

  6. Our product: Cloud Services Broker • Initial Idea: Application to automatically discover, acquire and consume Cloud based services. • Over 100 potential Customers talked to Size of the opportunity • Total Available Market - $240B by 2020 • Served Available Market - Federal agencies, • International Agencies and Higher Education sector • Federal Agencies (annual $10 billion by 2018). • Initial Target(For minimum viable product) • Estimate CSB 10% of Market ~ $100 million

  7. Business Model Canvas Procure services that best match data, security, compliance Reduce acquisition time by 75% Machine readable SLA for live feed of performance. Manage services on private cloud Automate Negotiation Develop MVP Set up contracts with cloud providers, consumers • Target customers free initial use • Bundle services • UMBC Tech Incubator • Federal agencies • Industry • Defense Contractor • Federal agencies • Provisioning tool for private cloud • Commercial cloud providers • Internet • Mobile App • Cloud • Infrastructure • Developers • Free/Advertisements • Pay per Use model • Subscription based model • Consulting Services • Infrastructure costs • Developer costs

  8. First workshop in New York What we Did • Lectures on Business Canvas and it’s components • Instructed to interview 15 potential customers in 2 days • Stepped outside our comfort zone – cold called companies in New York, talked to people at the coffee shop. What we Found • Security was a top concern for customers • Customers ready to pay more for security/branded clouds • Increased our customer base to include Healthcare/Pharma, Financial sector - Organizations with compliance/regulatory requirements • Cloud Identity Management big business (Security/Privacy)

  9. Follow-up sessions in DC • Got out of the building to interview customers • Contacted key players in Federal agencies, cloud providers, other companies • Attended DoD cloud Assurance conference – gave us key insight on customer expectations • Weekly updates to the teaching staff

  10. Follow-up sessions: What we Found • Security/Privacy key concern for customers • Revised Value Propositions based on customer interviews • Security risk assessment • Cloud cost assessment • Removed a key value proposition “Automate Negotiation” • Large organizations have mature procurement staff. • Focused our targeted market to Federal agencies, International Agencies and Higher Education sector • Determined customer acquisition cost • Customer Archetype diagram, channels and revenue streams

  11. Customer Ecosystem Diagram Our Customer Archetype

  12. Business Canvas

  13. Insight • There is a market need for Cloud Service Brokers • Customers want Independent / Neutral companies for this role • Market in a flux due to ambiguous definition of what a broker should do • Some customers want the broker to do everything – negotiate SLAs, contract oversight etc. • Others are still working on a cloud strategy. • Cloud Providers currently not interested in tying up cloud brokers • Trying to get the “cloud broker” functionality within their offerings .

  14. Links • Technical video on Youtube

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