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Past and Current E-Teams

The overall goal of the UH I-Corps Site is to encourage students and faculty to think in innovative and entrepreneurial ways about their ideas by facilitating and supporting a variety of entry points to the UH Innovation and Entrepreneurial (I&E) ecosystem. One way to achieve this long-term goal is to not only encourage the formation of traditional, three person I-Corps E-Teams but also non-traditional, nascent E-Teams which can then act as a feeder program for more traditional I-Corps E-Team formation.

When it comes to the definition of an E-Team at UH, this “all of the above” strategy has led to non-traditional E-Teams participating in several UH I-Corps Site activities, including academic LLC classes, the WCE program and/or RED Labs program prior to forming a more traditional E-Team (consisting of a Faculty Lead, an Entrepreneurial Lead and a Mentor) that progresses to the regional or national I-Corps program.   

Initial E-Team composition at UH varies depending on the relative maturity of the idea or technology, whether or not the E-Team includes faculty and/or students and which UH I-Corps Site element initiates the team.

E-Team Types Created by the UH I-Corps Site:

Traditional I-Corps [Eligible for Stipend] - E-Teams are initially formed as traditional, three person teams (i.e. faculty inventor, entrepreneurial lead and mentor) in preparation for entering the regional or national NSF I-Corps program.

WCE Team [Eligible for Stipend] - E-Teams formed by a faculty inventor, 4-5 undergraduate WCE entrepreneurship students, an entrepreneurial lead (usually a graduate student) and a business mentor as part of the year-long, LLC-based WCE academic program specifically focused on commercialization of UH IP and technologies.

Student Only Team [Eligible for Stipend] - Student-only E-Teams (comprised of 1-5 students) are initially formed usually within an academic LLC class. As part of that academic experience individual students or group of students complete a customer discovery experience, identify customer segments, and develop a value proposition. These “nascent” E-Teams do not qualify for a UH I-Corps stipend unless they go on to form a more traditional I-Corps E-Team.