Three innovative start-ups with world-changing potential were named $1 million winners of the 2015 Powerful Answers Award contest, a year-long global challenge to discover and help bring to market technologies that show promise for addressing some of the world’s greatest challenges in the emergency response, transportation and healthcare categories. The winners were announced today during a live event in San Francisco hosted by Chris Hardwick.
Verizon awarded a total of $6 million to twelve winners. A top prize of $1 million was up for grabs in each category of the Powerful Answers Award contest, with $500,000 and $250,000 prizes awarded to one first runner-up and two second runners-up in each category.
“The last ten months have been an incredible journey for all twelve of these companies and it has been truly inspiring for our team to learn so much about their technologies and potential for solving real-world issues,” said John Doherty, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Verizon Ventures. “There’s a lot of excitement around these ideas and we are looking forward to working with each of the winners to help make their ideas a reality.”
All 2015 award winners are invited to the Powerful Answers Accelerator program at BootUp Academy. This program is designed to strategically accelerate companies’ growth through intensive workshops and knowledge exchange sessions that provide best practices in business planning, product development, UX/UI design, global go-to-market strategies, communications, financing and growth hacking.
2015 Powerful Answers Award winners by category:
Emergency Response
$1,000,000 winner
Bounce Imaging– Boston, MA
Bounce Imaging provides first responders with cutting-edge technologies that allow them to see what lies ahead in those dangerous environments so they can make decisions that are safer for them and for the civilians they seek to serve and protect. A user can toss low-cost, throwable omnidirectional cameras into a room, tunnel, attic, or other potentially-hazardous area and get back real-time – 360-degree video and sensor data about what is happening inside.
Internet of Things
$1,000,000 winner
Zizmos Technology – Palo Alto, CA
Zizmos provides earthquake early warning and high-resolution earthquake hazard maps for urban areas. The company is building a novel sensor network with mobile technology and cloud computing.
Transportation
$1,000,000 winner
Pogo – Seattle, WA
Pogo is building communities and giving parents the information they need to share rides. Pogo helps users streamline existing carpools and discover new carpool connections across trusted groups and guarantees paid rides as a back up.
