Secretary Locke's remarks U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced the winners of the i6 Challenge, a new $12 million innovation competition led by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA), in partnership with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Locke made the announcement during his keynote remarks at an event on regional innovation clusters co-hosted by The Brookings Institution.
The i6 Challenge seeks to identify and support the nation’s best ideas for technology commercialization and entrepreneurship in six different regions of the country. The winning team from each region will receive $1 million from EDA to support their project and may be eligible for additional awards from NIH and NSF. Projects include efforts to drive innovative technologies in the medical and bioscience industries to market more quickly by bringing experts in science and academia together with public and private sector businesses and entrepreneurs.
“I applaud the winners of the i6 Challenge on their tremendous achievement,” Locke said. “Each of the winners exemplifies the entrepreneurial spirit that drives innovation and will help move America forward by increasing our competitiveness around the world. The i6 Challenge represents a key component of President Obama’s innovation strategy - to move great ideas from the lab to the marketplace to create jobs and economic growth.” “I congratulate the very distinguished winners of the inaugural i6 Challenge competition to advance President Obama’s Strategy for American Innovation,” said Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer and Associate Director for Technology in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “And I also want to celebrate all of the entrepreneurs, investors, universities, foundations, and non-profits who applied their creativity and entrepreneurial spirit to the cause of spurring economic growth through innovation. The ingenuity you displayed in your applications reaffirmed the value of this Administration’s broader policy support for the use of challenges and prizes to help solve big problems.” “I am proud that the Economic Development Administration will be working with these organizations that have identified new ways to tap into the nation's innovative capacity,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development John Fernandez. “Their ideas represent the best that the six regions of our country had to offer, and I am confident that their projects will lead to job creation and economic growth.” “We are pleased to support NSF Small Business Innovation Research grantees as partners with the winners of the Department of Commerce i6 Challenge,” said Kesh Narayanan, Director of the NSF Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships. “We expect this collaboration to build on scientific and engineering discoveries and to accelerate regional innovation.” “Congratulations to the six winners of the inaugural i6 Challenge competition,” said National Institutes of Health Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. “NIH is committed to advancing President Obama’s policy of accelerating innovation in science and medicine across the United States.” The winning teams from each region are:
Source: U.S. Department of Commerce
