Applied Learning

Innovation doesn’t stop at ideas; it moves into action

Through an incubator, case competitions, and community-based projects, students work alongside faculty and partners to validate unmet needs, prototype technologies, and pilot solutions inside real healthcare environments. This is the sandbox where theory meets practice, and trainees learn how to design, fail, refine, and ultimately create impact in the Bronx and beyond.

INCUBATOR

The EIG Incubator is a hands-on biotech venture program that helps Einstein trainees understand how scientific discoveries become products, companies, clinical tools, and therapies. Working in interdisciplinary teams, selected MD, PhD, MD-PhD, and postdoctoral trainees build investor-style materials around emerging Einstein technologies with mentorship from faculty, alumni, industry experts, and Einstein’s Office of Biotechnology & Business Development.

Participants will:

  • Build a VC-ready pitch deck around real Einstein intellectual property

  • Learn core venture skills including IP, licensing, market validation, clinical development, business models, and investor communication

  • Receive mentorship from biotech founders, faculty, technology transfer leaders, and industry advisors

  • Present their work in a final pitch competition judged by faculty and innovation leaders

The program is designed to give trainees practical experience translating biomedical discovery into real-world health impact while helping advance Einstein technologies toward clinical and commercial potential.

RISE CASE COMPETITION

The Bronx has the highest poverty rate in New York and is one of the most under-resourced counties in the nation, ranking last among New York State’s 62 counties in all major health outcomes for the past 16 years in a row. Our patients experience disproportionate rates of chronic illness as well as housing and food insecurity all conditions deeply rooted in structural inequities that no single profession can solve alone. RISE (Reimagining Interdisciplinary Social Entrepreneurship) is EIG's flagship case competition, where multidisciplinary teams take on a live Bronx-based health challenge, defined in partnership with local community organizations, and develop it from problem definition through solution design, budget, and pitch.

Participants will:

  • Tackle critical social determinant of health challenges affecting Bronx populations.

  • Work in interdisciplinary teams across medicine, PhDs, public health, engineering and more.

  • Spend 2 weeks researching and ideating before pitching directly to doctors, scientists, designers, and community leaders.

  • Winners will get cash prizes and have the opportunity to continue to get mentorship on their projects to enact some of their solutions.

We hope to empower the next generation of health leaders to think beyond the clinic—building critical skills in public health policy-making, systems innovation, and social entrepreneurship—while creating lasting value for the communities we serve.