THE PROCESS

More than 250 applications from 32 states and nine countries were received. The finalists were narrowed down by a steering committee that consisted of leading industry experts and winners were chosen by the Lee School Prize Committee. Winners were announced at Demo Day, a virtual event held at the end of October. Winners of the Lee Prize $975,000 was distributed to nine winners. The prize money was allocated based on need, potential impact, and market readiness. The balance of the money will be used to host another event to continue to help the creation of innovations to help solve a problem not yet addressed during the initial call for entries. The selection committee was pleased by several submissions from Nevada-based companies and wanted to support their efforts to help in the recovery process. A subset of the Lee Prize, the Nevada Innovators Award, recognizes these teams with $25,000 each.

NEVADA INNOVATORS AWARD

Simple Tech: $25,00

Hayon: $25,000

Volan: $25,000

LEE PRIZE AWARDS

Promethium: $250,000 Virus-capturing HVAC system

Purlin: $250,000 One-time use recyclable bedsheets

Hotel Data Cloud: $200,000 Content distribution that gives hotels control of their listings on any booking channel

Goodwrx: $150,000 An app-based work scheduling software that simplifies job sharing

Maidbot: $50,000 Cleaning robots that also provide key data to management

WHAT’S NEXT FOR THE LEE PRIZE

Though the winners of the Lee Prize addressed many problems created by the pandemic, the planning committee believes there may still be work to be done beyond the prize-funded innovations. “Now that we have a platform through the Lee Prize, we hope to continue to push for innovations and solutions that will help our city and beyond get back to business,” said Leith Martin, executive director of UNLV’s Troesh Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. “We are planning a future event to continue to leverage the work we have started here. We know the road to recovery will be long, but we have already seen that with bringing the right people together we can make the world safer.”V For an indepth look at each of the winners, visit www.Leeprize.com.

Jan/Feb 2021 | VIEW ON MAGAZINE |

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