President’s

Innovation

Challenge

2022

The AUB President’s Innovation Challenge, an initiative by The Talal and Madiha Zein AUB Innovation Park (Zein AUB iPark), is on the lookout to identify and award the most promising innovative ideas in the country.  This annual competition targets members of the AUB community with viable and scalable startups that can improve the well-being of people in the current context of environmental hazards and economic challenges by helping to create an inclusive and human centered future.
PIC poster 2022

The Winners

We are happy to announce our AUB President’s Innovation Challenge 2022 winners who qualified to join our Talal and Madiha Zein AUB Innovation Park incubation program!

🥇1st prize of $30,000 went to Nadeera who pitched their idea about leveraging technology to change people’s behaviors to sort better and recycle more.

🥈2nd prize of $15,000 went to Neural Vision who pitched their idea about introducing Artificial Intelligence on eye imaging.

🏅The Chinyeh Hostler Award for Social Innovation went to HolexP who pitched their idea about AI usage to democratize programming hardware.

🏅People’s Choice Award went to uPaint who pitched their idea about their kit allowing anyone to paint ready-made or customized Artwork through numbers.

Congratulations everyone!🎉

All Winners and Judges
Neural Vision_2nd Place
Nadeera_1st Place Prize
HolexP_Chinhyeh Hostler Award
Meet our finalists
Meet Our Pic 2022 Finalists:
2022 Themes:
The President Innovation Challenge 2022 is looking for interdisciplinary teams that apply innovative approaches and technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain, machine learning, and others to start a new business or sustainable social enterprise with impactful solutions to problems in the following areas :
Healthcare
Modern medicine at its best: Are you a pioneer in this field? Are you creating medical processes and technologies that could lead to early detection of deteriorating and fatal conditions if found out too late? We are looking for devices, treatment and diagnostic methodologies; A.I., VR/AR, robotics or nanotechnology. Demand will always exist for healthier living, more affordable and less invasive healthcare.
Environment
ecology
Climate change and environmental sustainability challenges are red-flagged across many countries in the globe. Scientists are warning of further weather catastrophes if action is not taken to shift from contaminating energy sources to clean and renewable energy. As oil prices are skyrocketing – can you make life for the average Lebanese-like citizens more palatable from an energy-cost perspective? It is a chain effect that is hitting natural habitats, resulting in endangering plants and animals and affecting food chains. The impact goes stronger on those who live in poverty and are victims of food and clean water scarcity. Innovators are invited to bring their ideas forward and join efforts to help reinforce environmental sustainability.
Society
community sticker
 

More than ever people believe to today in the collective momentum of global citizenship. Whether by building skills, sharing knowledge, creating job opportunities, building synergies, or reducing inequalities. There are parts of the world where gender oppression is significant. Can you create a solution that breaks the gender gap or empowers disadvantaged capabilities? Can you empower individuals’ capacity to trade independently from political and economic instability?  Do you have a mental health solution that could reduce psychological challenges and convert people’s states from problematic to social and economic power? Can you deploy new technologies to prevent data abuse and protect human rights?

Supply Chain
supply chain sticker
Recent market trends and economical crises indicate that supply chain in many industries and global trades will always need a shock of enhancement and optimization. This may be one of the toughest fields to master, as the global and local variables are constantly changing and forecasting is becoming more complicated. Recent political events showed vulnerabilities in critical supply chains and the pandemic revealed new industry trends. Cost efficiencies, continuity and inter-industrial optimization is calling more than ever to be revisited in the light of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, internet of behaviors and big data.
CULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL FITNESS
supply chain sticker
Innovations can also promote design for cultural and environmental fitness of products and services, fostering co-creation for perfect alignment of solutions with cultural and environmental issues in the regions of the Eastern Mediterranean.

 

 

If you’re searching for a team or an idea, Click here to join the ideation slack channel to meet new people with amazing ideas!
Prizes
🏆 First Place Prize: 30,000 USD

🏆 Second Place Prize: 15,000 USD

🏆 The Chinyeh Hostler Award For Social Innovation: 10,000 USD

For the first time this year, we will be awarding the Chinyeh Hostler Award for Social Innovation,
which was established with a generous donation from Mrs. Chinyeh Hostler to inspire aspiring
entrepreneurs from across Lebanon and the region to learn about real-world challenges and think about how
they can use technology to solve these problems. The prize will be given to the team with the best proposal
for improving human well-being.

All winners receive admission to the Zein AUB iPark Incubation Program

Who Can Apply? 
✔ An innovative and validated idea, preferably with a prototype.
✔ Teams who are either part of AUB’s community or have members from AUB, including undergraduate students, graduate students, alumni, staff or faculty members.
✔ Have the needed set of skills that covers technical and business aspects.
✔ Have the intention and capacity to grow the idea into a sustainable or transferable state.

Innovators who are looking for partners to complete their teams can ask for help from the Zein AUB iPark team by sending an email to zeinaubipark@aub.edu.lb with subject “PIC 2022: Team Member Search”

In order to ensure optimal impact of the financial prize, startups that already have outweighing funding will fall a second priority in case of equal ranking in the finals. In such case, finalists qualify for the Incubation or Support Program offered by Zein AUB iPark.

Pic 2022 Timeline:
pic 2022 timeline
Evaluation Criteria:
  1. Value Proposition & Impact Potential: Is the proposed solution answering a real need for well-defined customer segments? Can it have a considerable impact on people’s lives?
  2. Innovation: Is the product or service innovative from a technical, business, or process standpoint?
  3. Team: Does the team contain the right set of skills? Are they available/committed to work on the startup?
  4. Traction: Has the team validated the product market fit? Have they demonstrated progress in implementing their idea?
  5. Business Model: Does the proposed solution have the potential to develop a straight-forward business model that is scalable and financially sustainable?
Got Questions? Check Our FAQ’S To See If Your Question Has Been Already Asked And Answered!