No! Anyone interested and committed to participating is welcome to apply. If you enjoy working with a team and are interested in tackling a biomedical problem, we would love to have your perspective. Every team needs legal, medical, biological, engineering, and entrepreneurial advice. So experience and interest in at least one of those areas is encouraged.
You get what you put in! This is your company. We’ve had people work anywhere from 1 to 10 hours/week. At the beginning, many teams meet for 1-3 hrs/ week to talk to clinicians and patients, and analyze the clinical need and possible market for the proposed product. Before design reviews, teams usually take 1-2 days out of their weekend to finalize their presentation or prototype. Team leaders can expect a heavier load of 3-4 hours per week at minimum.
You! The team and its members own 100% of the intellectual property of their work and, if incorporated, 100% of the equity in their company. It is up to the team members to decide contributions and how to allocate this ownership. This IP policy is one of the most unique things that sets IDEA Labs apart from almost any other university associated entrepreneurship program/class!
4-6 people, composed of at least one undergraduate, one graduate, and one medical student who span across a variety of fields including medicine, biological sciences, engineering (biomedical, mechanical, computer science, chemical, electrical, etc), business, and architecture.
Approximately 1 week after Idea Day.
First, make sure to apply before October 7th! Then, come to Problem Day! Sign up for teams that sound interesting. You’ll be interviewed by team leaders and hopefully accepted to a team!
This is largely determined on the group dynamics and how the team leader decides to run things. Some teams like to work on things in concert in a single space at a specified time, while other teams prefer to have leaders manage member individually and meet as a team only for brainstorming or team decisions. However it works, all members of the team have a say and should indicate how they think they work best and what they would enjoy most!
We have amassed a list of over 150 clinical problems for which a solution can be built within 1 year. A team leader will pick a few that he/she is interested in as a starting point, but the entire team should come together and pick an interesting, relevant, and doable problem.
That’s up to you! Members tend to draw on their experiences and educational backgrounds as they develop solutions (one reason why its so important to have a diverse group). We also encourage teams to engage with their clinical mentors and get a first-hand understanding of what the problem actually looks like. From there, the best thing to do is to just get to work - launch fast and iterate!