During the Hub's quantum I-Corps cohort this past May, seven University of Maryland graduate students took on four quantum technologies from the university's UM Ventures and examined their commercial potential. 

With diverse backgrounds in business, human computer interactions, software engineering, and more, the interns had to quickly develop an understanding of how their assigned quantum technologies could provide value in the marketplace. 

Each group conducted 20+ customer discovery interviews using the I-Corps methodology, analyzed the interviews using design thinking principles, and bolstered their work with secondary market research and the help of quantum faculty on campus. 

Following the I-Corps program, each intern team developed commercialization recommendations for their quantum technology and presented their findings to a group of UMD quantum faculty, UM Ventures innovation managers, and the I-Corps team. Their findings will help UM Ventures determine whether they should use university resources on these technologies to maintain patents and increased commercialization support. The quantum research faculty members present praised the interns' work for illuminating how their research would practically work in the market, as well as potential additional directions for their research.

UMD I-Corps Program Manager David Steele, leader of the internship program, has a vision of creating a sustainable university startup studio that continuously provides graduate students with deep tech commercialization experiences that will develop skills for their entire careers. 

"The university greatly benefits from the customer discovery and research conducted by these interns through I-Corps,” said Steele. “The program achieves what the university wants—to bring the transformational knowledge developed on our campus into the real world."

During the paid internship, students developed their skills for talking to strangers and presenting business information, learned how to analyze a product for market-readiness, and received a crash course in quantum computing.

"Students even have the opportunity to help start a company around their assigned technology if they want to, and we at I-Corps can help them do it," Steele explained.

I-Corps seeks to find sustainable funding for this process to analyze many more of the hundreds of innovations that UM Ventures tracks from university researchers each year.