Educating Historically Black Colleges and Universities Innovators About the Commercialization of Innovation by the Customer Discovery Process

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) innovators lag behind their non-HBCU counterparts in the commercialization of innovations as they were originally set up as teaching and blue-collar trade institutions. There exists a strong need for education and training to bridge this gap by promoting the commercialization of innovations in HBCUs and thus transform next-generation HBCU innovators into entrepreneurs. HBCUs are promoting entrepreneurial education and mindset via changes in engineering education programs and curriculums. Several federally funded programs like the National Science Foundation (NSF) Center of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) Center for Nanotechnology Research Excellence (CNRE) are promoting innovation and intellectual property generation at HBCUs. NSF I-Corps Program supports the education and training of innovators about the commercialization of mature or patented innovations at HBCUs. The NSF I-Corps Introduction to Customer Discovery explores strategies in identifying key customer segments through extensive customer interviews, which is a fundamental step in the commercialization process. This paper discusses our educational experience in the customer discovery process for Pumpless Solar Thermal Air Heater (Patent Number 10775058). To learn about prospective customers’ attitudes and perceptions of the innovation, we conducted 30 interviews with potential customers (end users). Our innovation is focused on providing portable, cost-effective, healthy, and environmentally friendly space heating solutions. We tested several hypotheses about the value proposition of our innovation during interviews to explore the market segments for potential commercialization. During the Customer Discovery process, we came to know about new issues such as health issues caused by the dry air in winter. We also learned that mitigation of problems due to the current heating system required a humidifier to reduce health issues that added additional cost. Based on our interviews our innovation is suitable for customers needing: (i) Heating source mitigating health issues, (ii) add-on technology to reduce their heating bills. Our next step is to pursue market segments for our innovation. We plan to utilize the current experience of commercialization of intellectual property to develop training modules for the MECH 302 Undergraduate Research Experience and MECH 500 Research Methods and Technical Communication courses offered under the mechanical engineering program at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC).