FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Andy Roscoe
Direct email: [email protected]
Washington, D.C. (November, 2013) – Astrapi Corporation successfully completed the first DC Innovation Corps (DC I-Corp) program at George Washington University. Astrapi was one of twenty start-up companies selected through a jury-reviewed process to kick off the initial cohort.
The prestigious DC I-Corp program is the new National Science Foundation-backed initiative aimed at translating the region’s vibrant research community into successful startups and licensed technologies. Astrapi Corporation has developed a game changing signal modulation technology that enables more efficient communications transmissions.
DC I-Corps guides entrepreneurial teams through an intense, seven-week program based upon the Silicon Valley-tested Lean Startup Model, which emphasizes developing a Minimal Viable Product, gathering extensive feedback from potential customers, pivoting and iterating. Teams seek a product-market fit for their innovation while developing a repeatable and scalable business model.
“Nothing lays a better foundation and prepares startups for the rapid change and challenges of the 21st century than the Lean Startup Model,” said DC I-Corps Director Edmund Pendleton. “We believe that combining this methodology with the research churning from world-class universities and federal laboratories in this region is the equivalent of releasing lightning from a bottle. Great companies that bolster the region’s economy and bring important products into our lives are bound to emerge.”
Communications bandwidth is limited the demand for it is not. Astrapi’s transformative spiral-based signal modulation approach, Compound Channel Coding™ (cCc™), has profound implications, dramatically improving spectral efficiency and systemically altering how telecommunications network operators send/receive signals. Demonstrated improvements will increase the value of spectrum and enable operators to meet exploding demand more economically than through expensive additional spectrum acquisition, infrastructure upgrades, or acquiring further transponder access.
David Shaw, the Atrapi team leader for the I-Corp program said, “We see this program as an excellent opportunity to institutionalize the lean start-up process and help us hone our business model. Astrapi’s transformative technology addresses several well established markets that include; defense communication, wireless, enterprise satellite, and M2M sensor-based networks.”
A joint effort of the University of Maryland, George Washington University and Virginia Tech, DC I-Corps focuses on innovations coming from engineering fields, medical/health/life sciences, and physical and computer sciences. The program builds upon the successful National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps initiative, but expands its scope to cover researchers and technologists with no prior NSF affiliation or support.
DC-I-Corps partners supporting the program and/or providing mentors include FounderCorps, UM Ventures, TEDCO, Center for innovative Technology, INNoVATE, Federal Lab Consortium, Roanoke-B lacksburg Technology Council, ACTiVATE, Maryland Inteccectual Property Legal Resource Center, Springboard Enterprises, George Washington Universtiy Office of Entrepreneurship, Virginia Tech School of Engineering, University of Maryland James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute (Mtech).
ABOUT Astrapi Corporation
Astrapi is the leader in a revolutionary method of communication – spiral-based modulation, a game-changing force in communication technology. By applying new mathematics to signal modulation, Astrapi is able to improve the trade-off between the four fundamental parameters in telecommunications: bandwidth, signal power, data throughput, and error rate. Based on foundational work by its founder, Dr. Jerold Prothero, the company’s patented Compound Channel Coding™ (cCc™) technology allows for dramatic improvements in communication performance by smoothly integrating periodic and exponential signal parameters. For network owners, operators and end-users, the resulting efficiency translates into higher spectral performance with more bits available at a lower cost.
www.astrapi-corp.com
About DC I-Corps
DC I-Corps is a regional program designed to foster, grow and nurture an innovation ecosystem in the nation’s capital, the nearby states of Maryland and Virginia, and the mid-Atlantic region. The program is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and jointly run by the University of Maryland College Park, George Washington University, and Virginia Tech. The program provides real world, hands-on training on how to successfully incorporate innovations into successful products. The ultimate goal is to create a new venture or licensing opportunity for program participants.
www.dcicorps.org
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