The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of 21 teams selected for the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) inaugural class of NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) awards.

The selection comes with $50,000 in funding that can be used to help develop scientific and engineering discoveries into useful technologies, processes and products. Beth Mynatt, executive director of Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and professor in the College of Computing, will serve as the principal investigator for the I-Corps initiative.

“Georgia Tech is actively and aggressively working to develop and commercialize the technologies developed here and to move these discoveries from the lab to marketplace,” said Stephen Fleming, vice president of the Enterprise Innovation Institute. “I-Corps supports our strategic focus to foster innovation and entrepreneurship on campus and throughout the state to ultimately create jobs and stimulate economic growth.”

According to Fleming, a number of programs have been recently initiated to strengthen these strategic efforts, including IPaT, Georgia Tech Integrated Program for Startups (GT:IPS), and Georgia Tech Flashpoint, a new technology accelerator program. These programs are supported by VentureLab, the Institute’s comprehensive center for technology commercialization, and the Advanced Technology Development Center (ATDC), which has helped launch and build successful technology companies for more than 30 years.

In total, the I-Corps awards are representative of six NSF directorates: Engineering; Computer and Information Science and Engineering; Biology; Mathematics and Physical Sciences; Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences; and Education and Human Resources.

For awardees, the first in-depth phase of the I-Corps experience will begin on Oct. 10, 2011, when the participants arrive at Stanford University for the curriculum kickoff.

The I-Corps program selects up to 25 teams on a quarterly basis to assess the commercial viability of their previously supported basic research. For more on the Innovation Corps, see the NSF Special Report outlining the program.