The Rainforest Accelerator Program wrapped up its fall cohort last week, showcasing teams of entrepreneurial researchers advancing their innovations. The Rainforest Accelerator Program, administered by UNM Rainforest Innovations, supports teams of University of New Mexico faculty and post-doctoral or graduate students to go outside of their laboratories and into the marketplace where they can learn first-hand about entrepreneurship.
Designed to help participants explore and validate the commercial landscape surrounding their innovation, the accelerator provides each team with $3,000 to support market discovery efforts and proof-of-concept prototyping. Following the Lean LaunchPad curriculum and supplemental training from the Kauffman Founders School, teams engage in customer interviews, validate assumptions, and refine value propositions with guidance from experienced mentors.
The outcomes of program include a recommendation based on an assessment of the viability of the overall business model and substantial first-hand evidence for or against product-market fit, with a definition of the customer segments and corresponding value propositions.
Projects supported during the fall cohort included:
- NanoFit by Jorge Canales and Cecilia Perla Isabel Quinto Ramos
- VIT map by Ahmed Mohamed
- Nuclear Microreactor by Minghui Chen
- TalentSync by Solomon Gbara
- Sonus Separations by Ruben Trujillo
- Sodium Plus by Hao Nguyen
- NoTo HP by Andres Sanchez
- Aniey by Roman Balayar
Learn more about the Rainforest Accelerator program here: https://innovations.unm.edu/program-activities/rainforest-accelerator/