SPRINGFIELD, Vt. – Black River Innovation Campus’ (BRIC) updated Entrepreneurial Accelerator will focus on creating start-ups within technology, advanced manufacturing, and advanced computing. BRIC is partnering with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., to provide commercialization opportunities with NASA-developed technology for participants.
In November 2022, BRIC was awarded $3 million through the Economic Development Administration Build to Scale Venture Challenge to scale its Actuator program to new geographic regions and add advanced manufacturing and advanced computing verticals to its incubator offerings. These new objectives strongly align with NASA’s technology transfer program, providing a joint opportunity to promote commercial activity, economic growth, and innovation in rural America. BRIC’s partnership with Goddard will focus on the technology transfer program resources, while providing regional entrepreneurs with the resources that enable scalable high-growth concepts.
In addition to startups engaging in BRIC’s Actuator entrepreneurship program, regional innovators, businesses, and students will examine available Goddard technologies to determine which ones have the most promising commercial or partnership potential.
“Engaging with growing economic regions to educate start up and STEM communities is a core value for NASA. We are excited to work closely with BRIC and connect within their expanding ecosystems,” says Samantha Kilgore, Goddard’s Technology Transfer Expansion program’s lead.
BRIC’s partnership with Goddard aligns with the launch of the organization’s updated entrepreneurial curriculum, BRIC’s Actuator program. The curriculum offers founders a 10-week program three times a year to hone business development skills and network with key regional mentors and resources. The program will focus not only on supporting the development of a specific business concept, but also provide the entrepreneur participants with a set of tools for building a “founder’s mindset:” exposure to a number of business models and structures that will support future business conception. BRIC will combine this start-up programming with a lifestyle curriculum that will provide 10 weeks of seasonal activities, events, and adventures embracing what it means to not just survive, but to thrive in rural Vermont.
“We have a unique ecosystem for entrepreneurship here in rural Vermont,” says BRIC’s Interim Executive Director Marguerite Dibble. “We wanted to create a program that highlights everything that makes Vermont such a special place to live, and to build a business. By adding a lifestyle curriculum to make Vermont a more accessible option and providing excellent start-up programming, I believe we’re achieving that goal. When you’re an entrepreneurial person, chances are you’re going to be creating companies for the rest of your life, and we want to show why Vermont is a great place to be for just that.”
BRIC’s new focus on advanced manufacturing and advanced computing as well as technology start-ups is supported by keystone partnerships with Vermont State University, Vermont Technical College, and Norwich University.
In addition to Springfield, Vt., BRIC will be hosting and expanding events into the Randolph region, furthering the organization’s goals of empowering rural Vermont communities through entrepreneurship and technology.
BRIC will be introducing its new programming and the technology transfer partnership with Goddard at workshops throughout the state where participants can rapidly create and iterate on business concepts with local mentors to explore the entrepreneurial process. The first workshops will take place on March 29 in Springfield, and on April 11 in Randolph, with more to be announced.
Sign ups for the workshops can be found at BRIC’s website, and applications for BRIC’s Actuator entrepreneurship program are open, with cohorts beginning in May 2023, September 2023, and January 2024.
For more information on the Black River Innovation Campus and its Actuator program, visit www.bricvt.org.
To access the software catalog, and for more information on NASA’s Tech Transfer program, visit www.technology.nasa.gov/.