Harvard University’s Innovation Lab (iLab) was founded in 2011 as a resource for Harvard students interested in entrepreneurship and innovation who want help to grow their nascent business ventures. Working across a wide range of disciplines, it provides a place where unique collaborations are fostered and offers mentoring, workshops and a sense of community to incubate change and growth.
The Bertarelli Prize is awarded to the winners of the annual President’s Innovation Challenge and has inspired the development of innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. The Challenge encourages new ventures to advance new social impacts, cultural enterprises or health solutions.
Each year $75,000 first prizes and $25,000 runner-up prizes are awarded in each of three tracks:
- Social Impact or Cultural Enterprise
- Health or Life Sciences
- Open Track, for ideas that transcend categories
Previous Bertarelli Prize winners have tackled problems as diverse as overcoming resistance to HIV retroviral therapies, improving the effectiveness of in-vitro fertilisation, and how to more effectively share medical data between patients and healthcare professionals.