Polsky Center Announces Fall 2019 I-Corps Program Cohort
The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is pleased to announce the latest cohort of the Polsky I-Corps program, a 7-week highly-experiential program designed to empower UChicago scientists, researchers, and students to test the commercial potential of their STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) research and ideas.
Teams receive a $2,500 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant for their participation and are expected to dedicate an average of 4-7 hours per week to classroom sessions, homework assignments, and interviewing industry experts and potential customers. The program is led and taught by Starr Marcello, executive director of the Polsky Center and adjunct assistant professor of entrepreneurship at Chicago Booth, and Melissa Byrn, director of innovation programs at the Polsky Center.
Now in its sixth year, the Polsky I-Corps portfolio has risen to 150 teams– including notable alumni such as BallotReady, ExplORer Surgical, ClostraBio, and BiomeSense.
The Polsky I-Corps Fall 2019 cohort is:
AIDED // Enhancing education through Artificial Intelligence. Team members: Lauren Blake, Katie Rhodes, Eric Friedlander, and Bryce van de Geijn
CARIBE // Engineering personalized switchable CAR-T cells to treat triple negative breast cancer. Team member: Jary Delgado
CITY HEALTH TECH // We aim to reduce rates of illness by promoting health education and using our patent-pending device that tracks and increases hand washing times by triggering a timer/animation. Team members: Ibraheem Alinur and Josh Griffith
IMPROVED BREAST CANCER THERAPIES // We have developed a suite of technologies to improve breast cancer therapies with the goal of achieving reduced side-effects. Team members: Sean Fanning, Geoffrey Greene, and David Hosfield
NETMICROSCOPE // High Speed Data Analytics and Machine Learning of Internet Service, for diagnosis of performance problems, security monitoring, and potentially targeted advertising. See https://netmicroscope.com/ for more details. Team members: Nick Feamster
PANAI // PanAI is a machine learning-empowered medical service company that provides a unique solution for PDAC tumor diagnosis using histopathological images as well as organoid models for precision pancreatic diagnosis and therapies. Team members: Hao Wu and Christopher Weber
QDIR TECHNOLOGIES // The project is focused on using solution-processed semiconductor materials to make infrared technologies low-cost and commercially-accessible for applications beyond military and research. Team members: Matthew Ackerman, Philippe Guyot-Sionnest, and Xin Tang
SANO SEAT // We are working on a solution to improve elder health through IoT and have a prototype of a sensor that goes on a wheelchair. Team members: Winnie Wu and Robin Seaberg
TRIAGE4ME // Triage4Me is a mobile application that helps users determine the most appropriate site for potentially urgent clinical care. Team members: Stephen Weber and Michael Wall
ZERO-BURDEN DIGITAL BIOMARKERS FOR AUTISM // Software implementing Digital Biomarkers for predicting Autism Diagnosis in children before the clinical decision is made. Team members: Dmytro Onishchenko and Ishanu Chattopadhyay