"One day there will be a cure," Ashkan Novin says.
"And I hope that we will play a part in that."
Novin, a PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut, is the winner of the school's Innovation Quest entrepreneurship competition.
The $10,000 second-place prize went to Genesist, which is developing a gene therapy that could prevent cancer from spreading throughout the body, the Hartford Courant reports.
The other two winners: Toribio Labs with a $15,000 prize for its wearable clothing that tracks the heart, cognitive awareness, emotional status, and physiological workload of wearers, and 3D Reality with a $10,000 prize for its virtual reality product that allows users to experience virtual reality in the real world.
"We saw the opportunity to create something that would make a real-world impact for athletes," says John Toribio, a Ph.D.
candidate with Toribio Labs.
"Our goal is to get information that will determine who needs more training, assess progress, determine risk of injury and more."
The program, which has been around for 13 years, helped Toribio and his co-founders create a business model, understand what makes a business viable, and identify the best way to launch the company, the program's director tells the
A customized collection of grant news from foundations and the federal government from around the Web.
Three social enterprises were recognized at the 2013 President’s Challenge Social Enterprise Award for their major contributions to society. SATA CommHealth and Bliss Restaurant landed Social Enterprise of the Year titles, while Bettr Barista Coffee Academy bagged the award for Social Enterprise Start-up of the Year.