A total of $35,000 was awarded to six Innovation Challenge winners in the Graduate/Faculty/Staff/Incubator Startup division. Immuno Nano Med, a company focused on developing next-generation vaccines against infectious diseases, was awarded first place and $15,000 in the Graduate/Faculty/Staff/Incubator Startup division of Innovation Challenge on Nov. 19 at a reception at MERGE, Iowa City. Immuno Nano Med is founded by Kevin Legge, a professor in the Department of Pathology. The company's first product will be an inhalable vaccine against influenza virus. 

Placing second and winning $10,000 was Gemme Technology LLC. Gemme Techology, founded by Amy Gemme, created Daytz, a dating app designed for people to meet in real life, not on screens. It's patent-pending "Vibe Check" system allows users to express intentions through sliders that generate 64 combinations of input.

Third place and $5,000 was awarded to Abscora (Mahmoud Hanafy) and fourth place and $2,500 was awarded to NeuroPred, Inc. (Michal Brzus). Two honorable mention awards of $1,250 went to Pani Clean (Sattar Alsaedi) and Casmium LLC (Ashwin Dervesh and Nikhil Herdt).

The competition is hosted by the University of Iowa John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center (Iowa JPEC). Iowa JPEC is the hub for entrepreneurial education and outreach at the University of Iowa. It is committed to helping students, faculty, staff, and community members launch and grow businesses.