Incubaor Process.

Incubator Key Concepts and Glossary

 

1. Venture Team

A Venture Team (VT) is a team of students from the MSU Faculty of Technology and Engineering who dream of building a viable product and sustainable business. Such a team can be a single departmental team or multi-disciplinary, comprised of 3 to 5 students with multiple skillsets in product development, business, and marketing.

2. Incubation Council

An Incubation Council (IC) comprises of alumni team, a select coordinators from MSU Alumni Association. student representative, and faculty members. The incubation council will govern the Incubator processes and ensure fair and transparent evaluation of proposals and winners.

3. Incubator Mentors

Incubator Mentors (IM) are a team of alumni and faculty members assigned to each Venture Team to guide them throughout their innovation cycle Incubator mentors will challenge their assigned venture-team to execute their product vision and eventually prepare them for final award selection.

 

4. Incubation Proposals

Each Venture Team is required to put together their project proposal in two parts: (a) Executive Summary, (b) Business Plan. The executive summary is a high-level proposal of their core innovation idea. The detailed proposal is one that includes skinny business plan, supporting technical and development plan.

5. Selection Process

The Incubation Council will review each of the incubation proposal from many Venture Teams. There will be two levels of screening: (a) Executive Summary screening, and (b) Business Plan screening. The Venture Teams will meet the Incubation Council and present their business plan and proposal, who will make the final selection.

6. Incubation Class

An Incubation Class is a set of Venture Teams that were selected based on their project proposal. It is a great privilege to be part of an incubation class, which runs for one academic year. The members of the Incubation Class earn Seed Award and assigned Incubator Mentors to support their innovation.

 

7. Seed Award

Each Venture Team that is selected in an Incubation Class receives a Seed Award, which is substantial cash award. Each team in an Incubation Class will earn the Seed Award at the start of their project. The money is an incentive to accelerate building the venture team's Minimum-Viable Product (MVP).

8. Mentoring Process

Each Venture Team meet periodically with their assigned Incubator Mentors (two or three times each month) and communicate via email to seek support and validation of their plan and execution strategy. The responsibility of such sync is on Venture Team.

9. Milestone Reports

Each Venture Team is encouraged to share monthly and/or milestone reports to their Incubation Mentors to show progress of their product development. Such reports can also include milestone demo of their progress.

 

10. Final Report and Demo

An Incubation Class is a set of venture teams selected for a year in the VISION 2020 Incubator Program. An incubation class runs for one academic year and will roughly align with MSU academic year. All the venture teams in an incubation class compete to win the prestigious year-end award.

11. Graduate of Incubation Class

An Incubator Graduate is a Venture Team that won the first prize for its product development. Such a graduate will win amazing recognition and additional cash award to incentivize the team to continue their product development beyond the first year.

12. Venture Award

The winner of the Incubation Class is awarded the Venture Award based on their final report and demo to the Incubation Council at the end of the annual program. Beyond the huge recognition, the Venture Team is incentivized to continue building on their product idea with the Venture Award money.

Incubation Process.

Incubation Process.png

FAQs - Incubator Program

 

Who can participate in Incubator program?

We encourage MSU Technology Faculty students in a group of 3 to 5 students to apply for incubator program as a team.

What are the goals of the Incubator program?

Our program is intended for students to join the entrepreneurial journey by innovating on a real-world product idea. While you can derive ideas from your practical project, it is best to think about incubator program as an amazing experience in working on a new product idea in a safe and nurturing way.

Is incubator program for my final year project?

Note that MSU engineering students have a final year academic requirement to complete a practical project. Note that the Vision 2020 Incubator program is distinct from your academic requirement and should not be confused with supporting students in completing their final-year practical projects.

Who can participate in Incubator program?

We encourage MSU Technology Faculty students in a group of 3 to 5 students to apply for incubator program as a team.

Is Incubator modeled after others?

Yes, the Vision 2020 Incubator program is modeled after Silicon Valley technology incubators who have nurtured successful companies such as: AirBNB, Dropbox, Instacart, etc.

Goals of the Incubator program?

The key goals of Incubator Program are to foster innovation, entrepreneurship and excellence by using cross-disciplinary ideas to create “real world” products that can be taken to market.

 

Guideline for Proposal.

While the Incubator program intends to facilitate the learning of the art and science of entrepreneurship and innovative thinking, we will use the following criteria to select the winning proposals:

  • Viability of bringing the proposed idea/product to market

  • The potential economic value of the proposed idea/product for customers

  • The uniqueness of intellectual capital (which is the core of the idea/product)

  • Quality and comprehensiveness of the proposal

  • Passion and commitment of the team

Each of these criteria will have fairness and careful consideration. Thus, it is essential to state that the Incubation Council's decision making the selection of Venture Teams will be final.

The Two-step process for proposal.

To participate in the Vision 2020 Incubator program, each Venture Team will need to work on three critical components of your business plan:

  • The idea – you will need to select an idea that will become the cornerstone of your pitch; eventually, we will want you to build a "minimum viable product" of your thesis.

  • The team – this is a team game, and you should assemble a team of fellow Techo students; the team should include between 2 to 5 team-mates.

  • The proposal – your team will need to prepare a proposal (also known as a pitch or business plan). We recommend using the Business Canvas Model (google it) for preparing your business plan.

While students may consider selecting an idea based on their current engineering discipline, they are free to choose any idea that aligns with the Incubator program's criteria and framework. We encourage cross-disciplinary teams to join forces in forming Venture Teams.

Venture Teams should get ready for a quick two-step process of entering the Vision 2020 Incubator program with their proposal.

  • Executive Summary: Submit a quick summary of your proposal for initial screening. The goal is to get quick feedback from the Incubator Council to better allow the Venture Team to flesh out its detailed proposal. The executive proposal will be reviewed electronically in a prompt manner (within one week of submission).

  • Business Plan: Submit a lean business plan that fleshes out your project proposal for consideration by the Incubator Council. Venture Teams will be scheduled to present to the Incubation Council over video conference.

The Incubation Council will select the Venture Teams' winning ideas and induct the winners in the prestigious Incubation Class. They will be assigned Incubator Mentors and given Seed Award cash to get started in building their dream business idea.

Incubator Resources.

 

Incubator Overview