City University Of New York

The CUNY iHub and I-Corps programs are national leaders in technology innovation and entrepreneurial business development that leverage the existing ecosystem in New York City and the surrounding Mid-Atlantic region. They provide innovators with a structured portal for accessing the NYC region’s unique combination of world-class universities, venture capital investment resources, and one of the nation’s fastest growing technology startup cultures. The CUNY iHub is a New York State Innovation Hot Spot designee and CUNY I-Corps is a National Science Foundation I-Corps Site designee. They are partnering with over 40 public and private incubators, accelerators, and economic development assets to spark the revitalization of the NYC region in the post-SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

This Innovation-based Economic Recovery project delivers economic development to Upper Manhattan, contributing to the resurgence of an economically distressed community by meaningfully expanding opportunities for disadvantaged people. It leverages investment and other public contributions to deliver state-of-the-art entrepreneurship training and workforce transformation. It focuses on entrepreneurship support to promote technology-enabled entrepreneurialism and enable access to people and ventures that may not normally pursue IP-based, deep-tech development and deployment.

New ventures will be trained in bootcamp-like cohorts modeled after the successful NSF I-Corps Lean LaunchPad entrepreneurial training program, culminating with a final lesson learned presentation/pitch. Following the cohort, new ventures will receive one-on-one support in securing non-dilutive SBIR/STTR grants, as well as seed/early stage venture capital financing. Successful completion of this project will serve as a recovery and resilience model to be shared throughout the country.