NYUAD InnoVention

About InnoVention

The NYU Global InnoVention Competition is a two-round global prototyping competition challenging NYU students enrolled at NYU in New York, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai to build a startup team, prototype products, and pitch commercially viable solutions for pressing societal problems. The competition consists of two rounds — a local competition and global accelerator and pitch event.

For the local competitions, teams competed in one of three parallel prototyping challenges operating out of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, NYU Abu Dhabi, and NYU Shanghai campuses. Each campus hosted a series of events and programs to encourage students to pursue solutions to pressing real-world problems, followed by several weeks of intense programming and prototyping supported by each campus’ resources. Each campus hosted a local event to select the winners of local competition and to award prize money and the opportunity to participate in the Global InnoVention Competition.

Phase 1: StartAD x NYUAD

① First place: $2,000
② Second place: $1,000
Both: a chance to compete in the global competition

The Abu Dhabi program incubated 6 NYUAD teams for an intensive period of 7 weeks where participants were expected to be learning through online workshops, coaching sessions and mentorship. The aim was to provide them with the skillset and adequate knowledge to overcome challenges often faced by early-stage startups, including developing ideas into scalable and repeatable businesses. As well as, have a solid prototype to pitch in front of a jury of experts on April 6th, 2022. Two teams were selected for the Global InnoVention competition taking place on the 4th of May 2022.

Phase 2: Global Competition

Grand Prize: $25,000

The Global InnoVention Competition starts as soon as the local winners are announced on April 6th, 2022 in the NYUAD InnoVention Showcase Day. In the four weeks leading up to the demo day, teams will go through a hyper accelerator during which time they will be immersed with additional resources, mentorship, guidance, and expertise in an effort to prepare all the team to present their final pitches. A multidisciplinary panel of judges representing all three ecosystems will award one team with the distinguished prize of the Global InnoVention Winner, worth USD 25,000.

Our selection criteria

NYUAD students
Between the ages of 18-25
Tech startups with an MVP
Preferably solving societal problems
Open to all industries and sectors
Minimum team size of 2 people
Applicants must be able to commit to attend all workshops and complete the required work

Participant Benefits

Validate your business through a series of workshops and trainings

Benefit from a suite of training modules focused on prototyping

Get hands-on 1-1 coaching by a leading startup coach

Stand a chance to win up to $3,000 in the regional competition and $25,000 in the global competition

Pitch your business to a jury of UAE experts and angel investors on April 4, 2022

Showcase your product in the Global InnoVention Competition to international experts and inventors

Previous Cohort

Introducing green hospital care
Davit Jintcharadze and Yelyzaveta Borodynia

Holistic wellbeing solution matching specialists with clients
Malina Dugulan, Alem Shaimardanov and Walid Bajjani

Online clothing marketplace available in minutes
Omar Rayyan

Building social entrepreneurship
Anh nguyen, Khoa Tran, tuyet Nguyen, Ninh Dam, Hoai Luu and Khoa Nguyen

E-learning app teaching essentials not taught traditionally
Armaan Agrawal and Gautham Dinesh Kumar

Improving security for the community
Gonzalo De La Cruz and Anas Zeid

Pioneering peer-led tutoring
Sarah Afaneh, Mariam Amar, Seif Kassem, Mohammad Samer and Youssef AbdelHamid

educating students on risk management & trading
Jaiden Matharu and Nicholas Raffone

Alumni

Global Edition Winner
Hafsa Ahmed, Sarah AlKaabi and Anas Jawed

Abu Dhabi Edition Winners
Malak Abdel-Ghaffar, Haneen Fathy and Salma Zeid

Aman Pandey, Jerome Sajan Varghese and Ayush Pandey

Lenah Ankliss, Kevin Mokhtor, Lavish Panjwani, Maha Abdullah and Hannah Kasak-Gliboff

Deborah Agboola, Amina Kobenova and Lady Gabrielle

Lauren McMillen, Junior Garcia, Vu Long Phan, Emily Broad, Steven Wyks and Daria Akinshina