University of Arkansas Team Selected for National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps

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Nilanjan Banerjee

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. –The National Science Foundation has announced that a team from the University of Arkansas is one of only 21 teams selected for the inaugural class of the Innovation Corps, or I-Corps, program.

As part of the program, the team will receive a $50,000 grant and will participate in the I-Corps curriculum, which is designed to get them out of the lab and interacting with customers.

This team members include Nilanjan Banerjee, principal investigator and assistant professor of computer science and computer engineering in the College of Engineering; Xiangyu Liu, an undergraduate student in the computer science and computer engineering department and a member of the Honors College; and Douglas Hutchings, a graduate of the University of Arkansas micro-electronics and photonics program and the chief executive officer of Silicon Solar Solutions, a privately backed startup with several ties to the university.

The team will be assessing the commercial potential of a mobile gaming platform called Mobidemics, which is being developed by Banerjee and Liu.

Mobidemics uses location information from participants to gather data and generate computer models. These models can then be used for any research that requires information about the ways in which people move through the world. For example, Hutchings explained that Mobidemics could be used to predict the spread of infectious diseases, based on movement and interaction patterns. It could also be used to study consumer behavior such as which stores people visit and how much time they spend there. “I see it as similar to the Folding@home project but for mobile GPS,” he explained.

On its website, the National Science Foundation explains that I-Corps “will connect NSF-funded research with the technological, entrepreneurial and business communities to help create a stronger national ecosystem for innovation that couples scientific discovery with technology development and societal needs.”

“The University of Arkansas is honored to be included in this exciting program, and we feel it will enhance our strong entrepreneurship model,” said Jim Rankin, vice provost for research and economic development. “We support the efforts of our researchers to commercialize their innovations, and we look forward to partnering with the National Science Foundation in this endeavor.”