BioMoto, NCRC Win Collaboration Awards

Two North Carolina life-science collaborations are among five award winners in last week’s second annual Przirembel Prize competition at the InnoVenture Conference in Greenville, South Carolina.

The BioMoto program developed by a Charlotte-area collaboration including the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, and the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis each won Collaboration of Special Merit awards in the contest created to recognize collaborations across diverse organizations in the Southeast that are significant to those outside the region.

The competition, which drew dozens of applicants, promotes open innovation and a greater sense of distinctiveness for the Southeast as an innovation hub.

The prize was awarded in four categories this year. Other programs winning awards in the contest include:

• SCRA, a South Carolina-based applied research and commercialization services company, leading a team to aid in the care of wounded warriors returning to combat, was honored for collaboration in technology and product development;
• The South Carolina Governor’s School for Science and Mathematics was honored for Collaboration in K-12 education;
• IT-oLogy, a consortium that works to advance information technology talent from the classroom to the boardroom across the Southeast, was honored for collaboration in workforce development.

The contest is named for Chris Przirembel, a leader in open innovation who fostered many high-impact collaborations during his career as Clemson University’s vice president for Research and Economic Development.

This was the ninth annual InnoVenture conference, bringing business, investment and academic innovators together to promote an environment that can feed economic growth in the Charlotte-Greenville-Spartanburg area.