Historically, LaunchIt training had been done in person in downtown Louisville, but in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, program leaders took the bootcamp online. This allowed innovators to participate remotely — and from farther away. The spring 2020 virtual pilot cohort included entrepreneurs from Michigan, Arkansas, Mississippi, West Virginia and across Kentucky.

“We’re excited to invite these regional entrepreneurs into our LaunchIt family,” said program director Mary Tapolsky, assistant director of external programs at the UofL Forcht Center for Entrepreneurship. “Each class brings fresh ideas and perspectives, and this expansion will amplify that while accelerating the launch of innovative new products and startups that energize our regional economy.”

Since 2011, more than 600 entrepreneurs and university researchers have completed the program. The curriculum includes lessons on customer discovery, product validation, marketing and other considerations when preparing for market launch.

Participants normally would attend classes in person once per week in the iHub co-working space on UofL’s downtown JD Nichols Campus for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. In the virtual program, the meetings and content are entirely online.

One attendee in the spring 2020 virtual pilot cohort was Brad Profitt, assistant professor in the Marshall University School of Physical Therapy in West Virginia. Profitt’s participation in LaunchIt was sponsored by UofL’s NSF-designated , part of the UofL’s suite of prestigious innovation programs aimed at commercializing university-born research. Profitt hopes to further develop a patent-pending therapeutic device used to regain knee extension after an injury or surgery.

“The ultimate goal is to get this device in the hands of patients for home use to promote carryover between their physical therapy visits,” he said. “I learned a lot about how to effectively commercialize my product during LaunchIt and I highly recommend it to other researchers looking to do the same.”

Registration is open through Feb. 9 for the spring virtual cohort, which again will accept researchers from partner institutions and universities across Kentucky. More information on registration and grant funding opportunities is available .

The program provides training and $50,000 in funding that helps university researchers translate the ideas they develop in the lab into new, technology-backed startups. Participating teams complete an intense, two-month bootcamp learning about commercialization, engaging with industry and talking to potential customers.

Two projects from UofL were chosen to participate in recent bootcamp cohorts:

• BioCaRGOS, short for Capture and Release Gels for Optimized Storage (bioCaRGOS), uses a novel water-based stabilizer to enable storage of sensitive biospecimens like RNA, DNA or proteins at low temperatures for long periods of time, including during transport to remote locations. The project team includes: co-inventors Gautam Gupta andĚýRajat Chauhan, both in the J.B. Speed School of Engineering, and business mentor Jeff Cummins, who also is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the UofL Office of Research and Innovation.

• ARNA, short for , an artificially intelligent health care robot created to provide round-the-clock patient monitoring and allow nurses to focus more on direct patient care by taking on some of their time-consuming tasks. The project team includes: co-inventors Dan Popa and Sumit Kumar Das, of engineering, and business mentor Mary Tapolsky, of the UofL Forcht Center for Entrepreneurship.

Chauhan, of the BioCaRGOS team, said the experience helped his team find an industry commercialization partner. They currently are seeking partners for an upcoming application NSF Partnerships for Innovation program, which allows NSF-backed projects like his to work with industry on research and development and accelerate the technology’s path to market.

“Vaccine stability (especially for COVID-19) remains a critical challenge and is the critical bottleneck for effective distribution of the state-of-art MRNA based vaccines to current population,” said Chauhan, BioCaRGOS entrepreneurial lead and a postdoctoral research scientist. “Our technology has the potential to advance the delivery of vaccines at room temperature, a feat that cannot be achieved currently.”

Teams must be nominated for the national I-Corps bootcamp, and must first complete a regional . Both the BioCARGOS and ARNA teams completed UofL’s I-Corps site program — part of UofL’s suite ofĚý, that also includes the UofL , NIH and NSF programs. I-Corps at UofL requires successful participation and completion of , UofL’s own 10-week entrepreneurial bootcamp.

“These programs support commercialization of the work being done by our researchers here at UofL,” said Jessica Sharon, UofL’s director of innovation programs. “We’re proud of the ARNA and BioCARGOS teams, and their work to accelerate product development of their innovations to address unmet needs in the market.”Ěý

• First place went to the team that is working on Gluconfidence, a concentrated, convenient source of glucose for Type I diabetics.
• A Louisville Water Company team took second place with its product, a drinking fountain spout with a build-in filter to eliminate lead contamination from old or damaged pipes.
• Third place went to WMK Safety Solutions, which is developing an electric vehicle charging station safety device called EV Charg-Guard that disconnects power to a charging station if it is damaged.

The LaunchIt program, newly housed in the Forcht Center, trains entrepreneurs to evaluate the viability of their business opportunity and helps them validate key aspects of their business model.

“The Fall 2018 cohort comprised 26 business opportunities, including UofL researchers and graduates supported by UofL’s NSF I-Corps Site Grant, military veterans supported by , under-represented entrepreneurs supported by , and entrepreneurs from the community,” said Mary Tapolsky, assistant director of external programs at the Forcht Center.

LaunchIt has been offered 16 times and has graduated 480 entrepreneurs, many of whom continue to grow their businesses locally and achieve milestones including acceptance into local and national accelerators, securing investments, launching products, realizing revenues, hiring employees and successful exits. The next cohort will be in the spring.