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The National Science Foundation(NSF), a government agency that supports science and engineering research, has created a new innovation node in Southern California and is giving a $3.75 million grant to USC, UCLA and Caltech over the next three years to turn their academic research into commercial products and services. The program has the potential to spin-off tech startups in Los Angeles.
USC, UCLA and Caltech will together be part of a so-called ‘Southern Californian node,’ under the Innovation Corps, or I-Corp program. The I-Corp program was created by the NSF in 2011 to help researchers determine commercial possibilities for their work, and teach them how to build profitable companies around their research. The node will be headed by, Andrea Belz, academic director of the Master of Science of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the USC Marshall School of Business.
“We are very pleased to receive this transformative grant from the NSF, which recognizes the immense potential of the Los Angeles region to become a vibrant technology innovation ecosystem,” said USC Viterbi School of Engineering dean Yannis Yortsos in a statement. “With the largest number of talented engineers graduating from Southern California institutions than from any other geographic region in the nation, the conditions are just ripe for this creative transformation for the benefit of the region and the nation overall.”
As part of the program, the universities will hold events and training for NSF funded researchers. I-Corp courses teach academics about entrepreneurship and how to turn their engineering and scientific discovers into startups. Since its founding in 2011, 167 institutions have participated and 319 teams, usually with around three people each, have completed the seven-week training program. From those teams 163 businesses have launched.
The NSF is a massive organization with deep pockets and close links to academia at USC, UCLA and Caltech. With an annual budget in fiscal year 2014 of $7.2 billion, the NSF funds 24 percent of all federally supported basic research.
In an abstract explaining the reasoning behind launching an innovation hub in Southern California, the NSF said the "rapidly growing Silicon Beach technology corridor" made Los Angeles an attractive place for their grant. The program may help Los Angeles retain engineering talent after graduation. Mayor Garcetti and tech leaders have often trumpeted the advantages of Los Angeles’ universities, which graduate more engineers than any other section of the country, while also lamenting the fact that a large amount of graduates leave for other cities. The program and the funding it brings may be a good way to tie students of USC, UCLA and Caltech to the area and encourage them to build tech startups in Los Angeles.
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