Approaches to applying new digital innovation with healthcare delivery must evaluate the entire end-end user experience and supporting IT/infrastructure (legacy and newly commissioned). Existing points of care and patient engagement may not currently be ideal, but could get must worse if not done correctly. Companies too often focus on applying new technologies to an area of their workflow, but fail to assess the impact on the patient experience or other required components to ensure adoption, retention or accelerated abandonment. Digital health innovation affords organizations with new opportunities to improve things and streamline their business process. Many only focus on certain aspects or other siloed parts of their organization that are not equally transformed. I had 2 real bad experiences recently that highlights this challenge as healthcare organizations tip their toes into digital health.

After being on a Shingles vaccine waiting list with my PCP for over 6 months, I decided to take things into my own hands. I confirmed that my local CVS Minute Clinic had the vaccine in short supply elsewhere. I was unable to attend my second scheduled dose administration and tried to contact them to change my appointment.  4-5 call attempts later after navigating through a myriad of IVR menus, I reached the peak of my frustration with not being able to either cancel, reschedule my appointment, or be connected to someone at my local Minute Clinic. Thus, I did not feel bad about missing my appointment. I got a call several weeks later more interested if they should keep the 2nd dose vs. reschedule an appointment.

The second time I just did a walk-in visit where they may be more optimized around. Bad news again, I went online to cvs.com to confirm my local Minute Clinic was open during my planned visit. Unfortunately, when I showed up I saw a paper note over the kiosk indicating their Nurse Practitioner called in sick today and to try back again tomorrow. Sure, I don't mind getting in my car and driving down to check to see if someone called in sick the following day (really?). This is not a digital experience.

I received a paper order for a diagnostic test after a visit to a healthcare specialist in Boston. This was a familiar test I had done before so I thought it would be a breeze to do the test at a more local Quest Diagnostics near my home. Cautious me, I went online to confirm I could do this test at my local Quest office. The super generic info I obtained did not instill confidence this would be achieve without issue. I decided to give Quest a call to confirm they had this test at this select location before trekking it over to their office. Again, I traversed through multiple levels of the Quest IVR customer service phone support trying to connect with the local Quest office and only got a general call center support staff member. I was pleasantly informed by the customer service representative that all Quest facilities have the necessary testing capabilities for any order that can be placed with Quest.

I took my paper order form to my local office, saw the cute little Quest kiosk tablet at the office for me to check in (devoid of any Quest staff in plain view) and waited for my test. A woman popped out of a door to have me come in to only find out they were wrong and do not have my test my doctor ordered. They said I could come back after they order the test and I was super happy with the opportunity to traverse through 2 neighboring towns back to their office. When I asked if I could call them to check on the status of my test, they indicated they do not allow direct calls. They said they would order the test, but not sure when it would come in. Putting my name down on a Post-It note to call me did not instill confidence in their process.

Lesson to be Learned: Don't focus exclusively on sexy new digital engagement tools and opportunities to cut cost from your workflow or operations. Think about customer touch points and points of automation and required person-person engagement in some scenarios. Make sure all digital points of patient ingress are connected from a data and integration perspective.

I have been tracking the Provider footprints of Care Equality and CommonWell alliances and it is great to see continued progress on EHR interoperability beyond the technical standards innovation with HL7 FHIR APIs. Zoom into the NYC / Boston area on the CommonWell area coverage map that gives you a good sense of this progress. The profiled activities in Healthcare IT News last week just scratches the surface of the potential impact. Standard agreements among Providers and streamlined patient access are the only missing components in my mind that will extend complete ubiquity in the US. New digital health innovation layered on top of this new era of interoperable EHRs will be demanded by Providers that will further ink this progression.

It will be interesting to see if this momentum spreads internationally where there has been lacking government EHR subsidies to kick start some level of greater adoption and more disparate market/regional structures and government control health systems that create barriers and insulate old, more dated clinical information systems.

​Apple's recent Health Records announcement is based upon the same underlying FHIR APIs and there is a suite of other SMART application / integration innovation in the works, and a rejuvenation of the notion of Personal Health Record (PHR) that had failed in the past due to this interoperability issues. 

Lean is Not Just About Money

The financial impact of having to fund 2 - 3 children through a private college education can indeed be overwhelming and substantially change parent's retirement plans and lifestyles, not to mention the rainy day fund for unplanned expenses like having to care for an aging grandparent or their own unexpected medical conditions that may arise. Young parents with 4 - 5 children are especially faced with a daunting reality given where colleges costs will be in 10 to 15 years. The attractiveness of a $25k / year (possibly less than $13k for a commuter or if scholarships/aid are awarded) in-state public college education puts things in perspective for those with amplified responsibilities. Following a lean approach, the time value of keeping $100k - $150k per child invested in the market or avoiding debt can't be underestimated.

However, even if you are fortunate to have ample financial or scholarship/aid resources, there are many other benefits to a Lean Education including:

• Reduced stress and anxiety on the student when the financial stakes and time commitment are much lower that may promote greater career exploration, experimentation, and iteration
• Hands-on learning to vet career paths​ early and often - that can lead to a happier, more motivated, mature, and confident student
• Avoid the opportunity cost of spending 4 or more years of study for a degree that does not match the student's aspirations upon graduation and having to embark upon additional time to qualify you for such a career 
• Foster student empowerment with a strong sense for the value of money that pays dividends when students need to make their own decisions for buying a house, thinking about grad school, starting their own family, etc
• Students are more likely to have meaningful real world job experience and able to hit the ground running with employers when they graduate (not to mention a better chance of getting hired before they graduate)

Lean Innovation Analogue

For those of us in the technology sector, traditional methods for product/service development and entrepreneurship have evolved towards Lean Innovation and some learnings can be obtained for following a similar mindset towards education. Much has been written about Lean Innovation, including such things such as design thinking, agile methodologies, Google sprints, and the Lean LaunchPad curriculum at Stanford. Lean LaunchPad has become the basis for the National Science Foundation I-Corps program that spawns entrepreneurs from university researchers. Along with the Business Model Canvas tool and use of the scientific method, Lean Innovation has made its way to many large corporate enterprises.

​In lieu of pursuing things like waterfall style commercialization steps (ramping up large teams / cascading processes / investment with success heavily predicated on non-fully tested hypotheses), Lean Innovation embraces more experimentation and iteration throughout while in search mode where you are operating in the unknown. Once you de-risk things like the value proposition, feature sets, business model and technology feasibility, it is then all about execution on the known where added investment is warranted. Here is a summary of more Traditional vs. Lean Innovation approaches:

Experiential Learning and Skin in the Game
​
Lean Innovation is centered around more rapid iteration of a "hypothesis, build, measure and learn" feedback loop. Experiential learning follows a similar cycle that applies to both curriculum concepts as well as your desired overall career focus that starts primarily with just hypotheses for your likes, dislikes, and perception if you have the required skills and stamina. The goal is to optimize this learning cycle to get out of the unknown more quickly to de-risk all sorts of things.

My alma mater Northeastern University has been at the forefront of experiential learning with its long history as one of the first and few co-operative education schools in the US. Maybe this (along with the desire of going to school in Beantown) is a reason why they recently received 51k applications for 2.8k freshman seats. When both my father (also an alum) and I attended NU, it was known as a blue-collar or working person's university for folks seeking the co-op experience or a more economical big university option in the Boston area. My father worked his way through school to be the first in our family to graduate from college. I too gained an early appreciation for money by having to fund part of my education that made me take things more seriously and be fully in control of my own destiny. Aside from graduating pretty much debt free, my 1.5 years of undergrad co-op experience also enabled me to:
​

• Validate I would enjoy being an engineer early in college beyond my high school view of this being a good match since I was good in math and sciences
• Specialize and custom tailor my degree (electrical engineering can be quite broad and I gravitated to the wireless field vs. computer engineering, robotics, power systems, etc)
• Figure out that I loved smaller vs. bigger companies (did co-ops at large, medium and startup companies) 
• Establish unique relationships with professors from valuable work experience (did an undergrad thesis sponsored by a professor that tied into his research and opened an option for funded graduate school, that I opted out of in lieu of a more meaningful role in industry I was fortunate to be offered 6 months before graduation) 

Today, NU through this recipe for experiential learning success, has grown through the rankings to become a more elite school. So too has tuition climbed as a private university that is challenging its ability to deliver an ideal Lean Education. While on college tours with my oldest child, I heard nearly every school pitch some form of experiential learning (made me feel real good about my own NU decision many years ago). When you peel back the onion at most schools, they are moving in the right direction, but are still only marginally better than glorified internship programs and senior capstone projects (both of which are much different than a school oriented around co-op). More colleges are starting co-op programs, but they often tend to be limited to the high demand career fields (computer science, engineering, business) where universities are able to most easily build and maintain corporate partnerships. They also tend not to transform their co-op program into a broader experiential learning philosophy.

Experiential learning with integral paid job training helps directly connect students with tangible incentives and motivation. Do better in school and on work assignments and get better co-ops/internships. Obtain near-term satisfaction by connecting a learned classroom skill with job performance. Students also take more ownership when they contribute financially to their own education.  All these points support the theme of students having more skin in the game.

Managing Downside Risk
​
Most of us have heard sad stories of students graduating with an expensive degree to only find out they hate their chosen career, can't find a job with a liberal arts or medieval art history degree, end up working in retail as a stop gap, or quickly learn they need another degree to land their desired job. Unless you experience this first hand as the student or parents, I am not sure you can truly understand the impact to your emotional state, family relationship, and financial well-being. There is way too much stress placed on students these days. Having the student graduate in such a state of mind after 4 or more years of hard work can be debilitating short and possibly long term. In the business world, the equivalent of such failed investment would likely be met with severe consequences.

Whether it is $70k or $25k / year, vetting your headed down the right path early and often is key. This includes identification as soon as possible that college is not the right match or a gap year(s) may be warranted. Additionally, college investment at say an in-state $25k / year affords the student more opportunity for exploration or pursuit of a double major or several minors, even if it takes an extra 2 or 3 semesters. For some, a skilled trade may indeed be a better option and pathway to happiness with their college money put to better use supporting them in other ways.

MVP (Minimum Viable Pathway)
​
As folks realize later in life, your initial career focus rarely stands the test of time. People tend to pivot once they get their feet wet and get exposure to things they have no visibility into while in college or high school. Opportunities present themselves over time to motivate people to go outside their comfort zone that often has different education and experience requirements. Additionally, other priorities such as family life or stress levels impact career decisions. Of course there is also the Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates syndrome to cut to the chase on your passions (as long as you have the entrepreneurial bug in your belly at such a young age).

Similar to building a house, an undergrad foundation should provide ample footing to build upon. In your first job, you are adjusting to work life, assessing your strengths and weaknesses, assessing if excitement or boredom prevails over time. No one knows what they will desire 20 years into the future. Your undergrad education should minimally qualify you for your first full time role you "believe" to be your best career path from the experiential learning obtained in college. I have tended to look at specific job roles and industries in 2 and 5 year windows, respectively.

Given that you are likely to pivot early in your career, the lean method would point to minimizing your investment and time to start your career experience while still enabling you the flexibility to learn and navigate toward your ideal job preferences over time while earning a pay check. I equate this to an MVP (Minimum Viable Pathway) to set you off in the right direction.

Upon graduation with my BS, I learned I was already doing Masters level engineering work in my first full time job and that passing on that advanced degree had been the right decision. Over the next 5 years I gained exposure to many other engineering, sales, marketing, operations roles and explored graduate school options (both patent law and an MBA). Only after direct added exposure to both career paths did I realize blending my technology background with an innovation focused MBA would propel me to a greater realm of opportunities (new foundation) and career pathways I could enjoy. I came real close to attending law school, but was blessed to realize I would go nuts buried in patent/IP proceedings and only on the peripheral of new innovation.  I was fortunate to find a tech MBA program that embraced experiential learning (and fortunate my employers paid for most of my grad schooling). Along with evolving work experience, my combined undergrad and newly minted tech MBA afforded me the flexibility to continue my exploration in securing engineering management, product manager, marketing and business development roles. 

The obtained savings from an undergrad Lean Education can be applied towards a graduate degree, seed investment in a startup business idea, wedding, or down payment on a house. An MVP can apply to grad school also.

Coming out of the HIMSS 2017 healthcare IT event in Orlando last week, it is a good time for reflection and to assess areas of focus. Only time will tell if we are at the cusp of a Perfect Storm in healthcare innovation. Here are some soundbites that caught my attention: "increase clinician-patient engagement one minute at a time", "increase joy in clinician days to address surging burnout", "cognitive healthcare era", "augment not replace human intelligence", "most everything patients do is cogent to their self image", "designing for emotional connection not just physical needs", "need dedicated, extensible and agnostic data tier outside EHR", "motivation is desire with velocity" and "health is social". 

Many key factors are in play that could fuel dramatic change within the industry. We now have access to a wealth of available Technologies in the form of platforms, open source / licensed tools, frameworks, open APIs, growing interoperability, and consumerization has brought modern web, cloud, mobile and device innovation to healthcare.

People have accepted that Digital Health innovation is a key pathway to driving lower costs, improving outcomes, quantifying and realizing value based care models, and increasing patient / clinician engagement. As such, Investments are more fluidly being made in Digital Health including with Providers, medical device manufacturers, pharma and other segments of the industry. This is further supported by the strong venture capital/PE, angel and seed startup community, as well as a wealth of startup incubators.

At the heart of this new wave of Digital Health innovation is both incremental and dramatic New User Experiences all along the healthcare value chain. New technologies definitely help here, but the big gains come from a streamlined understanding and expression of patient, clinician and other care team member interaction with each other, systems, devices and every meaningful thing at our fingertips from the Internet. An army of UX / UI designers are being employed in this newer generation of products leveraging lean innovation and design thinking concepts vs. the historical ways of bottoms up engineering rollouts or waterfall product development that handicaps many legacy products and systems that fall short on many fronts. With lean innovation comes more experimentation and customer validation to ensure success and participation is high on new offerings.  This is key, since Outcomes = Participation * Efficacy. 

Key Features:

• S Pen Stylus – While this is a nice device differentiator and it has some cool drawing, note taking and OCR functions that perform well, I do not find myself real interested in the S Pen as long as I continue to use a paper notebook (though my use is dwindling there). Maybe I would be forced into adoption if I was thrust into a busy work day without my traditional notebook or laptop. The S Pen tip used was inconsistent; first device (blue) had softer tip and second (black) had harder fine tip. Think this is changeable.
• Edge screen – Yes, this highly marketed feature is nice with a wider display without increasing the form factor (side note, that this device is pretty light, think and pocketable). I will say I hated the older Samsung Note devices which were ridiculously large, awkward to hold and put in your pocket. The Note7 is physically smaller than the previous Note5 and is actually pretty comfortable to hold (as long as you only put a small case on it). Clearly Samsung is trying to differentiation on this unique screen feature, but there is only so much you can do with this and may take a step back in UX. I would also argue that many folks do not have the skill set to customize the range of Edge screen capabilities engineering by Samsung or the dexterity to use if effectively. Sometimes I do mistakenly touch the Edge portion of the screen that pauses watching a video.
• Edge Panels – This is an interesting concept (if you are right handed) that allows you to use one hand (thumb) for some quick browsing tasks. It is increasingly more difficult to do many tasks with one hand on larger devices (though we all try to do so). Samsung has a fairly limited set of Edge Panels preloaded and ones you can download. Without some more meaningful core functions represented as panels (eg. scan my Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn feeds, news aggregation beyond CNN and Yahoo), I am not sure it adds enough value for mainstream consumer adoption. This could work for a larger group of prosumers if more UX work was invested in the panels
• Edge Feeds – This is pretty useless with a ticker-tape style of textual scrolling info on the edge of the screen.
• Edge Notifications – I really miss seeing notifications on my Moto lock screen that I could tap to quickly access. The concept of swiping the Edge screen to display notifications and feeds is a bad UX. I felt like Larry Hagman trying to rub the side of my phone to make I Dream of Jeannie appear. From a UX perspective, something is not totally quite right in the operation of the lockscreen and notifications.
• Edge Lighting – Pretty useless
• Health Data Capture – Tracking steps and activity is becoming table stakes. Nice to have a formal pulse and SpO2 meter, not sure I personally will use it much though.
• Iris (Retina Eye Scan) & Fingerprint Lock Screen Control – Both work pretty well. I am a one handed guy as much as possible, so fingerprint control is out of the picture for me. Wish the Iris unlock did not require thumb swipe to invoke eye scanning. The good old PIN seems to be fine for most folks.
• Camera – Yes, the Note7 is claimed to be the best camera on the market and looks to take great pictures, but I personally do not appreciate the incremental capabilities / quality over my last device. I had already reached a ‘good enough’ factor, until such time I had a high power optical zoom lens :)
• Waterproof – I took the Note7 to the beach, but was wary of submersion testing (even before the battery issue was announced). I did have a bit more confidence around water, including when it was raining one day and it got wet.
• Software / Marshmallow - This version of the Android OS is OK and seems pretty stable, although I specifically like what Apple has done with touch and hold icons for added functionality. Did not like how the Gmail Calendar app does not remember my default calendar view every time I click on the Android widget. I was annoyed by the recurring loud volume popup warning when turning music up. The ability to run 2 apps on the screen is cute, but have not found a meaningful use for it yet.
• Pricing - At a $864 full retail price (Verizon), this is the Cadillac in the industry. The Samsung S7 Edge is very similar (size and features excluding primarily the S Pen) for $792. There is a big jump down to the S7 at $672. Even though I am an Android guy, I am not sure Samsung rightfully warrants this price premium over the class of iPhone devices (better range of overall price points) and even Android peers like Motorola.

Final Word:

Check out this hazmat setup below that Samsung sent me to send my original Note7 back. I know most consumers have returned devices to their local wireless retailer. But for folks like me or online purchases through Samsung, I wonder how many consumers will follow these instructions. It also makes me wonder why more products with Lithium Ion batteries do not come with such special handling.  It was not like the Note7 is going to be powered on and charging while in the box back to Samsung. I suspect this return packaging (including special outer fire-retardant box, within a box, within a box, rubber gloves, etc.) cost them some serious coinage and took as long to design / procure as the fix to the Note7 battery.

Mobile Integrity recently launched an exciting new partnership with the team at Brandwidth Global to focus on enabling deeper connected healthcare experiences for users across the value chain. We have come together as Healthy Context, LLC.  

With today's lower barriers to entry with many new enabling technologies and rapid innovation cycles, how does one differentiate a new product or service offering? Well, your competitors are likely reading the same research reports, getting similar feedback from customers on pains/gains, conforming to the same regulatory/compliance requirements, reviewing industry best practices for design, and trying to use as much "out of the box" capabilities when deploying new platforms.

Within the Digital Health realm, successful new offerings must address user adoption, retention and efficacy. User experience is key to all three. Two functionally equivalent offerings can yield very different experiences for patients and clinicians. Most marketers do not have the skill to fully capture and understand user needs that may be layered deep within innate human behavior. Getting users Hooked on your new product/service may require this deeper level of user understanding. Ensuring a meaningful Connected Health experience surrounding a new therapy, chronic disease management program or new model of care delivery will likely require more radical vs. incremental innovation.

Probing deep into user behavior requires different skill sets from varying social sciences. Once these deeper human insights are uncovered, they are instrumental to help prioritize product and service roadmaps. Too often we are over-engineering solutions and must make hard choices for the right feature set to drive the user experience. Thus the growth in the concept of an MVP (minimum viable product). User experience design can be very opinionated. Bringing patients into a staged "cleanroom" setting to observe and define needs may miss key user actions and conversations within their native environments. Harnessing cognitive science, behavioral psychology, cultural understandings and linguistics can uncover unique user needs with science based rationale to drive experiences and innovation roadmaps.

I believe there were several motives that propelled Google to pull the trigger this past week on acquiring RCS player Jibe.  This is part of their multi-pronged attack on the consumer need for communications and interactivity. Having worked at Verizon Wireless to help define their Rich Communications strategy and service realization back in 2010, there are a range of drivers that come to mind that I note below.

As with many mobile carrier efforts, the GSMA's Rich Communications Suite (RCS) has been plagued by slow adoption and weak execution. Even after watering down the original (more feature rich) version of RCS, carriers struggle with embracing and driving consumer adoption for the suite of new enhanced messaging services enabled by RCS.  Google has had its hand in driving adoption of WebRTC however on the desktop browser front. Some of this carrier challenge with RCS is due to their DNA being primarily a mover of bits and wireless infrastructure engineering expertise, but also due to their loss of control of the handset.  Today, there is very, very little Verizon, AT&T, Sprint or T-Mobile content or customization on your latest smartphone here in the US.  There is even less carrier content that actually gets used or adds value to the consumer.  Voice over LTE (VoLTE) is going to happen and that is the last opportunity for carriers to layer in some value-add around their investment in IMS technology with integral voice, video chat, rich messaging, voicemail transcription, multi-ring mobile / landline, and presence indicators. Enterprise Unified Communications is a different beast.  Carriers may not gain from Google's push into RCS here, depending upon Google's ultimate motivations.

Similar to what I am seeing with my efforts in the mHealth / Healthcare IT space with a vast amount of wearables devices, mobile / IoT platforms and the array of clinical systems / EHRs, this is not a technology problem.  It is about integration / compatibility, organizational execution and the right inspired innovation around an overwhelming amount of available technology and platforms. 

Here is my view of Google’s drivers behind scooping up Jibe:

1. Compete with Apple iMessage - Google Hangouts and its predecessor Google Chat struggle to gain the adoption of iMessage on Apple devices.  
2. RCS Integration - It may be hard (or a just a pain) for the Android team to do custom integration to each mobile carrier variant of RCS implementation. Having a more formal native RCS solution may be easier for Android to take a more active role in defining the interfaces/APIs and enabling set of capabilities that are pre-integrated into the companion set of Google services.  So this would be an RCS interface on one side facing the carriers and 3rd party app developers and Hangout video / chat / presence, Google Voice messaging and Gmail compatibility on the other side.
3. Facebook Messenger Threat - As Facebook moves more to become a full blown messaging platform, Google may see this as a threat and seek ways to differentiate its efforts around messaging and integrated communication services.
4. Carrier Marketing – Mobile carrier incentives to adopt RCS based services could motivate carriers to more heavily market Android vs. iOS devices.
5. ​More Integral Mobile Play - Expand Google Hangouts and Google Voice (mainly overlay services today) into more integrated and feature rich mobile offering native to smartphone core functions and a consumer’s mobile identity. Google loves to experiment and learn from beta rollouts and RCS does fit into that bucket and adds to its repertoire of IP communications services. 
6. Enhanced Messaging Framework - Extend the native Android messaging framework to developers to help build the next WhatsApp, SnapChat or Instagram around the Google platform.
7. Mobile Brain Trust - Acquire Google staff that can speak the language of the GSMA, 3GPP, IMS, IR.92, and mobile network QoS among the carrier community if they indeed aim to take over the complete mobile user experience.
8. RCS Hedge - If RCS takes off, Google would need to have a play and want to avoid being a laggard.  Outside the mobile world, Google has a history of driving certain standards to its own benefit.  Look back at their purchase of On2 and efforts with WebM and what is now the VP9 codec for web video.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-30/google-plans-to-standardize-messaging-with-jibe-acquisition

Here is a short piece I wrote profiling my educational experience at Northeastern University and their unique focus through the years all around experiential learning. I continue to be reminded of the power of this education I received many years ago.  While on the college tour circuit with my son who is a high school senior, I was amazed at how many schools now seem to align around  what has been a core foundation for NU. I am not sure many can deliver on such promises across their entire campus, curriculum and programs.

https://www.linkedin.com/edu/school-single-activity?activityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6044282587478777856&trk=edu-rec-feed-title

Here is a piece I wrote on my recent NSF I-Corps experience from my work with Northeastern University and their Health Sciences Entrepreneurs program.

http://www.northeastern.edu/hse/accelerating-experiential-learning-through-the-nsf-i-corps/

It is daunting to realize the NSF made 6,169 early stage investments last year in 2014 that totaled almost $2.5 billion across their SBIR and STTR programs. This represents 59% of seed stage investment vs. 41% venture capital firms. As an onramp to this funding in the university sector is their Innovation Corps Program (I-Corps) that I recently participated in as a mentor with an exciting new mHealth startup being spun out of Northeastern University. The I-Corps 7 week startup bootcamp is a great means to get university folks out of the lab with hands on experiential learning in the real world and develop the business skills needed to navigate to commercial success. The NIH has also embraced and launch their own I-Corps initiative. Here are more stats on the NSF grants last year.

The I-Corps program is fairly new, but has graduated more than 500 teams consisting of an entrepreneurial lead (typically a PhD student), principal investigator (university professor) and a business mentor. I-Corps is being embraced by a growing number of universities across the US. Due to the intensity of this I-Corps startup bootcamp, the NSF has designed a less rigorous version that they are launching as I-Corps Lite, which they seem to be aligning to help impact ventures on a pathway to the more meaningful SBIR Phase II and III grants.

You can read more about I-Corps and a breakdown of the NSF SBIR and STTIR activities from Steve Blank here, who helped start the I-Corps program from his Lean LaunchPad course at Stanford.