The Rainforest Accelerator Program recently concluded its spring cohort, highlighting a new group of entrepreneurial researchers translating their ideas beyond the lab and into real-world applications.
Administered by UNM Rainforest Innovations, the program is 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.
A special thank you to the mentors from this cohort which included Denise Pliskin, Peter Schmitz, Stuart Rose, and Tom Chepucavage.
The spring 2026 projects included:
- OxyZink by Raju Vadthya
- Elemental Sensing by Tybur Q. Casuse
- DAS Laser by Denis Seletskiy
- Healthcare Safety Hero by Falko Schoeneweiss
- Induction Clamp by Devyn Del Curto and Zarek Van Bloemen Waanders
- ScholarPath by Anurag Shrestha
- Sun Safe Technology by Kyle Troche
Learn more about the Rainforest Accelerator program here: https://innovations.unm.edu/program-activities/rainforest-accelerator/