A National Initiative to Develop Diversity and Inclusion Infrastructure for STEM Innovation

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Recent years have seen a rapid rise in the creation of STEM entrepreneurship curricula, programs, and centers. Launched in 2012, the NSF I-Corps Program seeks to train faculty and graduate students in entrepreneurship and innovation. This program has succeeded masterfully, currently disseminated across government agencies. As society works towards cultivating a diverse and innovative STEM workforce for the future, it is critical to examine how I-Corps engages and influences members of diverse communities. Only about 8% of "U.S. innovators" are members of U.S. minority groups (including Asians, African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and other ethnicities). This lack of diversity in the scientific workforce implies that considerable talent is being left out of the innovation eco-system. This situation begs the question, "What technology innovations are we leaving on the table with these barriers to entrepreneurship?" GEM proposes the development of a three-year pilot program based on research findings and utilizing the existing I-Corps Network, that demonstrates and evaluates new approaches to achieving diversity in technology entrepreneurship and commercialization. The proposed initiative has the potential to transform diversity in the I-Corps Program at all levels, enhance the underrepresented minority (URM) SBIR/STTR pipeline, and ultimately increase the number of URM STEM entrepreneurs.To date, most I-Corps instruction is led by individual STEM practitioners who started their own ventures or have been involved in the venture capital community. While well-intentioned, many of these practitioners are unaware of research in entrepreneurship education and are unfamiliar with methods for constructing effective pedagogy and inclusive teaching. Instead, drawing from their own experiences, practitioners focus their instructional efforts on building start-up companies. Without informed design to enhance the experiences of participants with varied backgrounds and goals, I-Corps may not be promoting inclusive and diverse participation, thus restricting the pipeline of the modern entrepreneurial STEM workforce. If I-Corps seeks to promote a more inclusive entrepreneurship and innovation program, URM perceptions of the I-Corps Program must be understood. Specifically, discovery is needed on 1) why members of the URM community have specifically chosen to not to engage with the I-Corps program; 2) how members of the URM community who have chosen to engage with I-Corps program perceive their experience; 3) how I-Corps faculty perceive I-Corps programming with respect to the diversity, equity, and inclusion climate. Results from this research will help I-Corps leadership refine and support evidence-based entrepreneurship and innovation programs that encourage inclusive engagement for all.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.