Project Marie Application

IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society (TEMS), I-Corps Hub West, and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering invite women innovators to Project Marie* to learn about customer discovery, fundraising presentations, and pitches to investors. This education program is sponsored by IEEE at no cost to participants.

We invite women scientists/ engineers and their teams to participate in ZAP, an introduction to Lean Startup methodology and techniques for customer discovery through field interviews.

Sign Up Today

Deadline for 2nd cohort registration: 1st of September 2023

Here are the steps after you sign up on this form:

In the ZAP virtual class (3 sessions), you will learn about developing business models and how to conduct at least ten customer interviews.
We will link you to a mentor to help you prepare for investor pitches.

Individuals or teams that have already completed ZAP will be eligible to advance straight to the mentoring session. Those that completed ZAP in other I-Corps Nodes or Hubs will be eligible to advance as well with a letter of confirmation from their home I-Corps organization.

After the successful completion of the 1st Cohort, we are delighted to run the next cohort and subsequently deliver this program as a bi-yearly initiative. The participants from the first cohort had the opportunity to present at the first IEEE Conference on Innovation Management (InnoConf) happening between June 20-22 in Los Angeles. They also had the chance to avail a one-on-one investor mentoring session at InnoConf to learn more about how to raise funds for a budding venture.

* In honor of Marie Curie, who developed the first mobile X-ray units after discovering radioactive substances