Yale Innovators Prize
The Yale Innovators Prize is a $25,000 cash prize awarded to the for-profit or non-profit venture/project that has the potential to produce the most creative or impactful solution to real-world problems that doesn’t qualify for any other Startup Yale prize.
The Yale Innovators Prize is intended to catalyze a venture/project that otherwise would not qualify for funding within the Startup Yale prizes.
This prize is intended to:
- Stimulate applications of entrepreneurship and innovation at Yale University
- Generate ideas that are scalable, achievable, quantifiable, and financeable
- Educate entrepreneurs about the process of converting an idea into a successful startup
Application Selection & Judging Criteria
- Opportunity: The problem the venture/organization/idea seeks to address is clearly defined, and there is evidence that there is a significant target population who considers it important.
- Viability: The team has developed a clear solution to the problem, has a realistic path for getting the solution to the end user, and can continue to deliver the solution in a way that is financially and operationally sustainable.
- Innovation: The idea is truly innovative. It presents a new model, product, or service that fills a unique gap and/or applies an existing model to a new context.
- Team: The team has the knowledge, skills, passion, energy, and ability to execute.
- Catalytic-ness: The prize will be meaningful in driving the team/project forward in ways that may otherwise not have been possible as quickly or at all.
- Impact: The innovation demonstrates significant social or financial impact
Past Winners
2024 winner: Numanac (Dan Kelly, ARC ’25, Daniel Lee, James Fitzgerald, and Reem Kseibati) leverages AI-enabled Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to simplify farm knowledge management/decision-making, enhance operational efficiency, and empower farmers to derive actionable insights from data.
