2016 Thorne Prize for Social Innovation in Health or Education
The Thorne Prize for Social Innovation in Health or Education is a $25,000 cash
prize awarded to the best student-led venture focused on social innovation in
health or education. The prize will be awarded in the spring of each year to
support a student or group of students beginning or continuing to develop a social
enterprise or innovation focused on health or education.
Stage
Stage #1
Letter of Intent
Information
Interested participants are strongly
encouraged (though not required) to
submit a letter of intent.
Interested participants are required to
Stage #2
submit a written application detailing their
Written Application
proposal.
Stage #3
Live Presentation
Selected applicants will be invited to offer a
live pitch presentation of their venture to a
panel of expert judges. The winner will be
announced immediately following the live
presentations.
Due
11:59 PM, February 5,
2016
11:59 PM, March 28,
2016
April 15, 2016
Questions
For more information about the Thorne Prize, please visit innovatehealth.yale.edu/prize or
contact Martin Klein at ihy@yale.edu.
Thorne Prize Information Packet
2016 Thorne Prize for Social Innovation in Heath
Information Packet
Can I Participate?
All full-time and part-time Yale students at all levels of education and from any department,
registered in the current year of the competition (Fall 2015 and Spring 2016), are eligible to
enter. Individuals that do not meet this requirement may join or form teams, provided that at
least one of the principal contestants on the team is a current Yale student. Teams are
encouraged to seek the involvement of people inside and outside the Yale community. Entries
must be the original work of entrants and may be entered by an individual or a multi-member
team. The size of a team is not restricted, and neither is the number of entries submitted by a
team or an individual. However, participants in the Thorne Prize are strongly encouraged to
only enter one time, as this is the most effective way for an individual or team to learn from the
competition process in a focused manner.
Teams that have already secured arrangements for capital from any source must disclose the
amounts and sources clearly in their entries (i.e. sales revenues or contracts, research grants,
and personal or family funds.)
How will My Proposal be Judged?
Your proposals will be judged based on the following criteria:
Problem definition
Has the team clearly articulated the problem? Does the team understand the competitive
landscape? Has the team identified its goals and priorities?
Target population definition
Has the team defined its target population? Is this target population reasonably reachable and
“influencable” by the product or service?
Product or service definition
Has the team clearly articulated the product? Is the value proposition clear? Does the product
meet the needs of the target population? To what extent is this product or service different
from what exists already?
Potential for social impact
Has the team defined the target social issue? Does the proposed product or service directly
address this social issue? How much potential is there to scale the proposed product or service
for social impact?
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Thorne Prize Information Packet
Innovation
Is the product or service fundamentally different from what exists today? Will the product or
service change the existing paradigm of healthcare or education service or delivery? Does the
product or service seem likely to challenge existing structures?
Evaluation
How does the team plan to measure progress against its goals? What metrics will it use to
evaluate health or educational improvement? Are these metrics readily available and if not,
how will they be collected? What is the timeline for meeting key objectives and milestones?
Sustainability
Is the product or service sustainable? How will the team ensure the sustainability of the
company or organization?
The Team
Does the team have the necessary skills and expertise to execute its vision? Has the team
demonstrated strong leadership?
Presentation
Was the presentation of the product or service of a high quality and professionalism? Could the
presentation be made to potential investors and be received favorably?
The Prize
The $25,000 Thorne Prize represents the total amount of funding we will award the winning
team or individual.
In order to redeem the prize, the winning entrant must incorporate and submit a completed
Thorne Prize Claim Form certifying incorporation.
The name of the corporation need not be identical to the name of the Thorne Prize entry, but
the corporation must be engaged in the activities described in the team’s entry, and the team’s
contact person, as listed on the entry form, must be a director or officer of the corporation.
The prize must be claimed by December 31, 2016. If the winning individual or team fails to
incorporate and to submit a completed Prize Claim Form by December 31, 2016 the winner will
be ineligible to claim the cash prize award.
The winning team will be asked to provide semi-annual updates for the 18 months following
the awarding of the prize.
As a condition of receiving the prize, the Executive Director of IHY, or a designee, will sit on the
board of the awardee’s organization for a period of three years or an otherwise mutually
agreed-to term.
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Thorne Prize Information Packet
Judging
Judging will proceed in the following stages:
Stage 1: InnovateHealth Yale will review Letters of Intent to ensure that team entrants are
eligible to submit an application.
Stage 2: Judges will be responsible for reviewing and evaluating Stage 2 Written Applications.
The scores provided by these judges are tallied to determine which applications advance to
Stage 3.
Stage 3: In Stage 3, finalist teams will present their ideas to the panel of judges. The judging
panel will have reviewed all of the applications in advance. The presentations provide teams
with the opportunity to pitch their ideas to the judges in the way they would pitch to a
potential investor. Upon listening to the presentations and reviewing the applications, the
judges will confer and select the winning venture of the Thorne Prize, which will be announced
the same day.
Requirements:
Letter of Intent – Stage 1
Interested applicants should submit a 1-2 page Letter of Intent (using the form provided) by
11:59 PM, February 5, 2016. The letter should include the following:
1. The title for your idea;
2. A description of the health/social problem your idea is trying to address (50 words
maximum);
3. A general description of your idea (150 words maximum);
4. An overview of your market (150 words maximum);
5. A description of your core value proposition and/or product (150 words maximum);
6. Contact information for your team members including names, point of contact, Yale
affiliations, e-mail address, mail address, and phone numbers; and
7. Signed Entry Agreement.
*Note: Teams who did not submit the Stage 1 Letter of Intent may still apply in Stage 2.
Written Application – Stage 2
Applicants should submit an 8-10 page application (using the form provided) by 11:59 PM,
March 28, 2016 that includes the following information:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Title or name of the Venture
Short description of your idea (50 words or less);
Summary of the new venture (1 page);
Description of the status and stage of the venture (1/2 page);
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Thorne Prize Information Packet
5. Description of the challenge it is attempting to address and what health or education
and social and community benefits will be created (1-2 pages);
6. Description of the project team, partners and collaborators (1-2 pages);
7. Justification of the originality of the venture (1-2 pages page);
8. Next steps to establish the organization or bring the product to market including key
milestones for the coming year (2 pages);
9. Impact determination (1 page)
10. Budget for 5 years of operation (1 page)
Contact information (name, email and telephone number) for one team member acting as
point person for communications.
Live Presentation – Stage 3
Selected applicants will present in-person to a panel of expert judges. The winner will be
announced following the presentation. The live presentations will take place on April 15, 2016.
Confidentiality
All submissions will remain confidential. All judges and organizers have agreed verbally to nondisclosure. In accordance with general practice in entrepreneurship competitions and the
venture capital industry, judges are not required to sign non-disclosure agreements.
As a required component of the Thorne Prize submission, we ask that you submit a title for
your idea and a short (150 words or less) description of your idea and the
health/education/social/community problem it is trying to address. This will form a public
summary of the venture that may be published by the organizers in promotional materials and
press releases. Do not disclose proprietary information about your idea in the short description.
Finalists will also be presenting their ventures in a public forum and should maintain as much
confidentiality about their ideas as appropriate.
Intellectual Property
InnovateHealth Yale and the competition judges and other sponsors take all reasonable
measures to assure that all contestants retain their rights to their business ideas and
intellectual property. The judges of the competition include non-Yale organizations that are
interested in fostering the entrepreneurial process. Some of these organizations may be in the
business of working with and investing in the ideas of entrepreneurs. Only InnovateHealth Yale
organizers and judges will have access to the Stage 1 and 2 applications made by teams. The
competition cannot and will not take further responsibility to protect the intellectual property
or other rights of the contestants.
About Us
InnovateHealth Yale is committed to one concept: change. We are a group of Yale faculty,
program directors, and students focused on using the principles of entrepreneurship and
innovation to promote health and prevent disease. InnovateHealth Yale is a home for those at
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Thorne Prize Information Packet
Yale interested in creating innovative solutions to health challenges. We will train students to
become change agents, catalyze interdisciplinary entrepreneurial efforts to address national
and global health problems, and bring to Yale social innovators as role models and mentors.
To achieve these aims, InnovateHealth Yale—a program based at the Yale School of Public
Health—partners with leading organizations for innovation on campus, including the Yale
Entrepreneurial Institute, the Center for Business and the Environment, The School of
Management, The Center for Engineering Innovation and Design, the Global Health Initiative,
and the Office of Cooperative Research.
We believe that social entrepreneurship can be taught and the best students are those with a
passion for change, a willingness to encounter risk, and a vision.
For more information about InnovateHealth Yale, please visit:
http://www.innovatehealth.yale.edu
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