Universidad del Sagrado Corazón and Grupo Guayacán, Inc. are pleased to announce an innovative collaboration aimed at educating university students about innovation and entrepreneurship through the first university-level I-Corps course in Puerto Rico (I-Corps PR).
I-Corps PR is an intensive program for teams of emerging entrepreneurs interested in validating their business ideas. Last year, Guayacán and Sagrado began collaborating to bring the I-Corps PR methodology to the university. As a first step, Sagrado hosted the program’s 18th cohort, graduating 16 teams. This paved the way for adapting the program’s content to the classroom, and this past January, the course ADM 213, Customer Insight and Validation, was launched—marking the first time the I-Corps PR methodology has been integrated into a university curriculum as a for-credit course.
The course includes 17 students and is led by Attorney Patricia Ramírez Gelpí, an intellectual property lawyer, I-Corps PR instructor since 2018, I-Corps PR program manager since 2020, and NSF I-Corps instructor, alongside Dr. Roberto Guzmán Bayron, who holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration from Pontificia Universidad Católica de Puerto Rico and has been an I-Corps PR instructor and mentor since 2018.
“Having the opportunity to bring the I-Corps PR curriculum into the classroom is a dream come true after 10 years of hard work impacting the earliest stages of the entrepreneurial journey. This collaboration with Sagrado allows us to provide world-class content and tools to undergraduate students, planting the seeds of entrepreneurship. Only in this way can we ensure that innovation and entrepreneurship remain cornerstones of Puerto Rico’s economic and social development for future generations. Thank you to Sagrado, especially its president, Lcdo. Gilberto Marxuach Torrós, and its provost, Dr. Anuchka Ramos Ruíz, for the opportunity and for the trust they place in Grupo Guayacán to reach this important milestone together—for Sagrado, for Guayacán, and for Puerto Rico.”
Gilberto J. Marxuach Torrós, president of Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, highlighted that Sagrado is the first university in Puerto Rico to require all undergraduate students to develop an entrepreneurship project as part of their academic curriculum. “Wherever our students go, they will need to engage in the development and execution of projects on various scales. Our responsibility is to prepare them for these professional scenarios. That is why all undergraduate students at Sagrado, regardless of their major, must develop a substantial entrepreneurial project. They take a sequence of six entrepreneurship courses that guide them from ideation and validation to development and execution.”
According to Marxuach Torrós, “We currently have over 4,000 student projects in development. This important collaboration with Grupo Guayacán—an organization with nearly 30 years of experience that has been offering the I-Corps program for 10 years—provides our students with access to new mentors, methodologies, and proven experiences to support their growth as entrepreneurs. We share Guayacán’s hope that all these projects will contribute to the development of a sustainable and inclusive Puerto Rican economy.”I-Corps Puerto Rico (I-Corps PR) was launched in 2015 through a collaboration between GGI and the Georgia Institute of Technology (GT), with funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Agency. This year, I-Corps PR celebrates its tenth anniversary with the 19th and 20th editions of the program, marking a decade of success and growth. Over the course of 18 editions, I-Corps PR has impacted 296 teams and 1,132 individuals, 25% of whom were student groups. Guayacán aims to increase student participation in the program to provide tools to a broader group of individuals at the early stage of entrepreneurship.