INTERNATIONAL

                                                                                                         INSTITUTO iCORPS BRASIL 

 

     WHO WE ARE

           The Instituto iCorps Brazil  is an organization working in the area of Innovation, through: 

                    • Establishment, training and acceleration of innovative startups; 

                    • Transfer of academic research results through startups; 

                    • Improvement of the  competitiveness of the productive sector, through partnerships with innovative startups; 

                    • Design and operation of Innovative Startup Ecosystems.  

 

     WHAT WE DO

            Our goal is to promote the establishment, training and growth of technology-based startups that can become internationally competitive. We want to encourage the creation of startups based on important research results from our Universities and Research Institutes and make startups as vectors of innovation for the transformation of our productive sector. During the training, we use the methodology of “Customer Development”, which was conceived by Prof. Steve Blank of Stanford and Berkeley Universities, in order to achieve the following goals: 

                    1. Accelerate the transfer of research results from Universities and Institutes to the productive sector, through the establishment and development of new startups in sectors with high added value; 

                    2. Promote entrepreneurship among professors and students of our Schools, Universities and Research Institutes; 

                    3. Improve the competitiveness of Brazilian companies on the world stage, through partnerships with innovative startups; 

                    4. Stimulate the internationalization of our companies with a view to competitive access to the world market.     

                    5.Create a movement in our cities and states to become effective locus of innovative and competitive startups 

 

     OUR STORY  

          We believe that innovation and entrepreneurship are essential for Brazil to become an important player on the international scene. And that the movement to create innovative and competitive startups is the best way to generate a productive sector capable of competing in the world market. Today we have in the country several projects aimed at the creation of new companies. But, very few of them are able to compete the international market. Even in areas where we have a comparative advantage, we rarely hear about companies competing for world leadership, except in the commodity sectors. 

          There is a lot that we need to do if we want Brazil to be able to become a hub for global innovative companies. All countries aspire to reach the success of Silicon Valley and some centers, such as Tel Aviv, London and Berlin, managed to build an innovative ecosystem, adapted to their local reality, which feeds itself with the success of their startups in the world market. 

          The “Customer Development” methodology is the basis of the North American program called i-Corps, which started at the National Science Foundation in 2011, aiming to transfer to the market the results of the research financed by the agency. This shows that, even in the United States, with important scientific centers and a leadership in new technologies, there is a concern to increase the return on public investment in academic research, implementing a mechanism to transfer the results, in order to promote a new production system adjusted to the state of the art of new scientific and technological discoveries.

          Today, the i-Corps program is adopted throughout the US federal administration and it is used to train researchers at Universities who carry out projects funded by the Department of Defense, Energy, Agriculture, Health, Education, NASA, etc. And also all startups supported by Small Business Innovation Research programs. 

          For these reasons, we decided to create the Instituto iCorps Brasil, which was born with an international vision and intends to work by training startup teams whose businesses are based on scientific and technological research results and internal teams from existing companies, interested in promoting innovation to become competitive worldwide. 

          Here in Brazil, we must highlight FAPESP’s leadership, which since 2016 has been promoting a training project for startups as part of its PIPE Program – Small Business Innovation Program. At FAPESP, more than 400 startups have been trained in the same methodology used in the United States. We also highlight the initiatives of the Hospital das Clínicas of the  Faculty of Medicine of the University of São Paulo – USP, the Polytechnic School of USP,  the Agronomic Institute of Campinas – IAC, and the Catholic University of Campinas – PUCCamp.

 

     THE TEAM OF THE INSTITUTO iCORPS BRASIL   

          Three groups are part of the Instituto iCorps Brasil team: the Executive Board, the Innovative Startups, and the Partners  

 

     THE EXECUTIVE BOARD

          The Instituto iCorps Brasil  was founded by four executives with extensive experience in the productive sector and leadership in innovation and entrepreneurship activities. Today, these executives form the Executive Board of the Instituto iCorps Brasil : 

          • Flavio Grynszpan – He was President of Motorola do Brasil, Full Professor at COPPE/UFRJ and Instructor of FAPESP’s Pipe Entrepreneur Program. He is currently CEO of Instituto iCorps Brasil, professor of startups and researchers in the Innovation Corps methodology and member of the Innovation and Competitiveness Council at Fiesp. 

           • Hélio Marcos Machado Graciosa – He was President of the Research and Development Center CPqD and instructor at FAPESP’s PIPE Entrepreneur. He is currently a member of the Board of Telebrás and of the Innovation and Competitiveness Council of Fiesp  

          • Stefan Bogdan Barenboim-Salej – He was President of the Federation of Industries of Minas Gerais and SEBRAE/MG. Acts as a startup mentor.  

          • Claudio Aparecido Violato – He was President of Instituto Atlântico and Director of CPqD. Acts as a startup mentor.  

 

     THE INNOVATIVE STARTUPS  

     The Startups that are part of the iCorps Brasil Institute are grouped in Innovative Startup Ecosystems. 

     Today we have two Ecosystems: the Ecosystem of Innovative Startups in Agribusiness and the Ecosystem of Innovative Startups in the Health area. 

     All startups were trained in the first part of the “Customer Development” methodology in courses offered at FAPESP and at Universities and Research Institutes. However, startups still need support to advance to the commercialization stage. They need to validate their business and many need to certify and register their products with regulatory bodies, such as Anvisa and MAPA, before attracting investors and entering the market. We call this phase “Death Valley”, as it is the most difficult period for startups, when many give up. Today the following startups are part of the Innovative Startup Ecosystems:

 

     THE PARTNERS     

          The partners are public or private organizations that work together with the Executive Board, supporting Innovative Startups, facilitating the use of laboratories and equipment, providing access to specialist researchers and carrying out projects of mutual interest.     The Instituto iCorps Brasil  and its partners also facilitate the common use of their startup acceleration infrastructures, integrating the partners’ physical coworkings with the virtual coworking of the Instituto iCorps Brasil .     

Today the following organizations are partners of the Instituto iCorps Brasil :