Five startups supporting agricultural technology and faculty or women-owned businesses received awards for their prototypes.
The Innovation Hub at Research Park awarded five startups a total of $55,000 to further develop their prototypes.
Each year faculty, students and community entrepreneurs with an established technology startup are given the opportunity to develop a minimum viable product based on customer discovery and recommendations from the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps (I-CorpsTM). The Prototype Fund also assists in the development of intellectual property and validates technology for currently funded projects or new small business innovation research or small business technology transfer proposals.
This year, the Prototype Fund has awarded five startups with between $5,000 and $25,000 to further develop their. The awardees include students and faculty from Texas Tech University and the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC), as well as members of the community.
2022 Prototype Fund awardees are:
New American Fabric, LLC I $25,000
Creating inexpensive antimicrobial cotton fabric.
Founding Team: Phat Tran, TTUHSC faculty; Ted Reid, TTUHSC faculty; Noureddine Abidi, Texas Tech faculty; Nick Bergfeld, Texas Tech faculty.
G&G Ranch | $10,000
G&G Ranch was founded with a commitment to reduce the labor requirements and financial
inputs of growing specialty crops for urban farmers in Texas.
Team: Gabriella Hale, CEO and Texas Tech student. Gary Hale, CTO.
AuroraX, LLC | $10,000
A novel super-capacitor for solid-state energy storage using nanoparticle-based inkjet-printing
additive manufacturing technology.
Team: Bashir Morshed, founder and Texas Tech faculty.
Texas Earth Inc. | $5,000
Texas Earth focuses on improving soil health through products designed to restore
and enhance beneficial microbial populations.
Team: Sarah Burnett, CEO.
Quantum Galaxies Corporation | $5,000
Providing multifaceted quantum computing benchmarks using classical computing hardware.
Team: Bill Poirier, adviser and Texas Tech faculty and Jonathan Jerke, CEO.
