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Columbia Engineering

APPLICATION DEADLINE: Start Me Up Bootcamp Summer 2026

The Start Me Up Bootcamp is a virtual program designed to build your startup. The bootcamp introduces participants to customer discovery to assess the commercial potential of their technology through interviews. Teams complete 20 customer interviews, attend online sessions, present findings and determine their next steps.

Teams “get out of the building” to learn from potential customers to determine if they are solving a real-world problem with a sizeable market opportunity. Teams who successfully complete the bootcamp may be eligible to apply for a $50,000 NSF grant to continue customer discovery in the national I-Corps program. In addition to providing entrepreneurial training, the program enables students and researchers to identify new ways to apply research to solve problems across various industries.