By GREGORY ZELLER //
Hofstra University’s most ambitious business-acceleration effort has added a hefty prize for creative pandemic-related thinking.
Along with partners Northwell Health, New York City-based media/tech firm Digital Remedy and Rochester law firm Harris Beach, the Hofstra University Center for Entrepreneurship has added the 2021 COVID-19 Innovation Prize to its annual Hofstra-Digital Remedy Venture Challenge.
Now in its ninth year, the Venture Challenge puts up $75,000 in business funding and in-kind business-formation prizes, with competitors – including current Hofstra University students, incoming accepted students and/or alumni from Hofstra’s classes of 2019 and 2020 – enjoying mentorship services and a business boot camp en route to a final business plan competition.
Stacey Sikes: Bring the creativity.
New for 2021 is the COVID-19 Innovation Prize, which offers a $10,000 first prize (courtesy of Northwell Health and Harris Beach) and a $2,500 second prize (out of the Venture Challenge’s $75,000 pot) for “scalable innovations and business ideas that support the region’s recovery from the pandemic,” according to the Center for Entrepreneurship.
In addition to the fields eligible for the Venture Challenge proper, the COVID-19 Innovation Prize also welcomes proposals from all Hofstra and Northwell Health faculty and employees – dramatically increasing the idea pool, and the chances that the right post-pandemic solutions will develop in the right places, according to Hofstra University Executive Dean of Entrepreneurship and Business Development Stacey Sikes.
“Our goal is to find as many creative solutions as possible that can be implemented immediately to demonstrate Long Island’s resiliency in a post-COVID-19 world,” Sikes said.
Proposals focusing on public health equity, workplace protection, support for economically impacted businesses and safety on Hofstra University’s Garden City campus will play big. Submission deadline is April 1; more information on Venture Challenge and COVID-19 Innovation Prize submission guidelines available here.
