NY I-Corps Alumni Companies Boost Opportunities with TechConnect Bootcamp

The NYC Innovation Hot Spot, NY I-Corps Hub, and Empire Corps joined forces for a third time to host a Discovery Bootcamp for select I-Corps graduate companies participating in the November 2025 TechConnect conference held in National Harbor, MD. This TechConnect was focused on defense and smart cities.

TechConnect Discovery Bootcamp Fall 2025

The Innovation Hot Spot, Empire Corps, and the Hub sponsored five companies to take part in the Bootcamp, which included a pre-conference virtual prep session, support and coaching on site during the conference, and a final virtual session where each company presented key insights and learnings gained from their participation, as well as intended next steps. The companies included Mira Intel, UltraMEND, BioWraptor, TuneWave, and ARL Designs. Prior TechConnect Bootcamp companies, some of whom have since won SBIRs/STTRs, and those unable to attend were invited to participate in the final session.

The Bootcamp provided thoughtful guidance to participants, including best practices for customer discovery specific to TechConnect. For example, as the conference days are jammed with simultaneous events, participants were advised to use the TechConnect app in advance of the conference to schedule interviews with attendees, and to develop a Quad Chart to share on site with agencies and defense primes, companies that hold primary contracts with the Department of Defense. Throughout the conference, Hana Kassem, Operations Manager at Empire Corps, and John Blaho, Program Director of the NY I-Corps Hub and the Empire Corps NY State FAST Network, were available to participants for office hours, providing real-time feedback to companies.

“It was a great conference—our companies went in fired up to learn, and had a lot of positive take-aways,” said Kassem. “We all learned so much. Unlike the prior two conferences for which we ran bootcamps, which had a broader focus, this one emphasized defense. Within the Department of Defense, there are so many different sub-agencies. TechConnect gave us a great opportunity to gain a better understanding of each part of that agency, what each is looking for, and how they collaborate.”

Kasem added that the conference was very productive for the Bootcamp cohort companies. “When we spoke with our companies at the conference, for example, at our midway cohort check-in dinner, they all shared that they had gotten good feedback,” she said. “Many of our companies have a potential defense application but had not yet worked out the details. This TechConnect provided a great opportunity to rethink their technology in the defense space. All the companies did great networking and came away with plenty of new contacts for future conversations.”

Even as the agencies await Congressional reauthorization of the SBIR/STTR program, the CUNY team noticed a general trend towards making it easier to apply for grants, with an effort towards simplifying the process and improving RFPs.

In her final bootcamp presentation, Danielle Nicholson, CEO of Mira Intel, shared her experience at the conference seeking interest in her company, which offers AI predictive monitoring for offshore and coastal assets. “We are dual use, so we have customers on the commercial side as well as federal side,” she said. “Both were present at the conference, and I had some interesting conversations about partnerships and possible pilot programs from folks that are interested in climate resiliency.”

John Phillips, CEO of UltraMEND, which provides wound care technologies that meet the dynamic, complex needs of battlefield situations, described relevant conference panel discussions about how drones hovering over battlefields can lead to extended evacuation times—making his technology even more applicable. “I had productive conversations with the folks from DARPA,” Phillips said of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. “DARPA Connect really helped with making inroads with DARPA personnel. It was a phenomenal conference for us.”

For BioWraptor, which offers a technology that preserves perishable products such as medicines and vaccines, TechConnect offered two key insights. “First, the one pager I created during the pre-conference Bootcamp really helped my connection with the NSF SBIR program director,” said founder and CEO Maeva Coste. “He encouraged me to better articulate both diagnostic and therapeutic applications. DARPA Connect was also helpful in identifying the right contacts and specific potential military applications; it was valuable to see how my technology could fit within their deployable biologic applications.”

Arash Nemati, co-founder of TuneWave, which creates solid-state optical scanners for constrained environments, conducted 15 interviews, making connections at DARPA, the Army, Air Force, and Navy, as well as companies such as BAE, Raytheon, and some startups. “One great insight I got was that with the US military, once you secure an initial grant, you should immediately apply for additional opportunities,” Nemati said.

Both founder Alan Lyons and chief scientist QianFeng Xu of ARL Designs attended TechConnect. Their company, which creates nanotech coatings for solar panels that can increase energy yields and lower maintenance costs, conducted 24 interviews at the conference. From this relatively high number of conversations, Lyons and Xu were able to glean some key findings and insights. They learned that some roads were now closed because of the elimination of solar programs, however, there might be new opportunities. For example, Lyons shared that “if we can apply our technology to ships and reduce friction on propellers by just one percent, it would create a huge impact in terms of energy reduction.”  

All the participating I-Corps graduate companies felt that both the Bootcamp and the conference itself were well worth the time and effort. The final virtual Bootcamp session closed with advice and counsel from the CUNY team. Arber Ruci, PI and Entrepreneur in Residence at CUNY Industrial & Applied Research, reminded the participants that when considering outreach and grant applications, they should “see what the program director you like has already funded, as it’s an indicator of their interests.”

Blaho and Ariella Trotsenko, Director, New York City Innovation Hot Spot, encouraged the companies to participate in a quick regional I-Corps session to update customer discovery findings or deepen their understanding of potential new product offerings and help with applying for non-diluted funding.

Trotsenko presented details of various New York State resources, including tax benefits through the NYC Innovation Hot Spot, and free intellectual property and market landscaping services for NYS companies provided by the NYS Science and Tech Law Center at Syracuse University. Blaho also shared next steps with Empire Corps for SBIR/STTR proposals.

“The entire conference felt very collaborative and very positive,” said Kassem. “Many agencies were looking to speak to companies and support them, with or without SBIR reauthorization. And all seemed optimistic about future opportunities for funding.”