Carnegie Mellon University students, faculty and alumni are recognized leaders in producing successful startup companies, and the university houses several centers and programs for promoting innovation and growth. Fueled by such entrepreneurship, the National Science Foundation-sponsored Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Site is one of the Carnegie Mellon vehicles that drives relationships with internal and external partners in the business community.

The objective of the I-Corps Site is to help students and faculty members test-drive their entrepreneurial skills while they collaborate with industry professionals to transition research out of the lab and into the commercial market.

Carnegie Mellon's I-Corps Site recently announced a new cohort of 15 startup companies that are commercializing innovations ranging from advancements in medical treatments to in-home security and gaming systems. This year's teams include Carnegie Mellon faculty members, alumni and students at the undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. levels, as well as participants from the University of Pittsburgh.

The fall 2015 teams include:

• Advanced Respiratory Technologies LLC, focuses on the design and testing of next-generation artificial lungs for the treatment of chronic respiratory diseases.
• Anactisis designs systems to extract and recover critical materials and minerals, such as the rare earth elements, from unconventional sources, including geothermal fluids and coal combustion fly ash.
• Chiroproktor is an instructional medical device developed to assist Doctors of Chiropractic (DC), Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (DO), Physical Therapists (PT) and Physiatrists in developing techniques for spinal manipulation and adjusting back pain and injuries.
• Evidence in Documents, Discovery and Analysis Group (EDDA) develops software to improve human welfare by finding and displaying evidence in scientific documents.
• flagtag offers users real-life prizes through a gamified, augmented reality, Easter egg hunt.
• Forest Devices provides a non-invasive, diagnostic technology that can identify stroke in ambulances, nursing homes and other pre-hospital environments.
• Green Polymer Modifications adds value to polymeric feedstocks using cutting-edge advances in chemistry and engineering.
• Human Motion Technologies LLC, analyzes patient feedback and biomechanics data to provide lower-limb amputees with the opportunity to test-drive potential prostheses using a robotic prosthesis emulator.
• imHealthy is developing a system of mobile apps and electronic health records that can be used to perform comprehensive evaluations of patients and guide the design of personalized intervention.
• Impact Proteomics provides advanced solutions for protein handling, including proteome sample preparation, bulk protein processing and rapid protein analysis methods, to help answer important questions about proteins, the proteome and diseases.
• Mieryx is developing the next-generation, molecular-computing platform for rapid, point-of-care genetic testing, on-site detection and classification of pathogens.
• Precision NeuroScopics is developing a next-generation, ultra-high-density, non-invasive, portable wireless brain sensing device to replace the traditional EEG with real-time brain sensing.
• SimSim LLC, provides a secure, home-access management solution through sharable locks and mobile apps.
• Skycision Inc., offers autonomous aerial mapping, flight planning, and analysis of climate and crop success.
• Titan Robotics Inc. is developing a scalable and environmentally friendly robotic system to remove paint and coatings from aircraft.

The I-Corps Site at CMU was created in 2014 with the support of a three-year, $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to the Carnegie Mellon Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE). The I-Corps program itself was started by Carnegie Mellon President Subra Suresh when he was the director of the National Science Foundation.

The principal investigator of the I-Corps Site is Lenore Blum, co-director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and founding director of Project Olympus. Co-PIs include David Mawhinney, co-director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, executive director of the Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship, and associate teaching professor of entrepreneurship; Robert Dammon, dean of the Tepper School of Business; Emily Stark, associate director of the Carnegie Mellon Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship; and Robert Wooldridge, director of the Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation.