Lexington, KY – At the launch of the 2014Alltech Symposium at the Lexington Center, Alltech Founder and President Pearse Lyons, Ph.D., announced the Lyons’ Den Innovation Fund that will award up to $500,000 annually to entrepreneurial projects in fields and geographical areas that have given rise to his business.
The fund is open to applicants with projects that would have direct economic impact on Kentucky and his native Ireland and be related to the food, beverage or agriculture sectors. Winners will be determined through a series of workshops and international panel interviews, according to a release from Alltech. They will be selected based on the economic viability of their projects while the amount awarded to each project chosen will be at the discretion of Lyons and the judging panel.
The idea for the fund came from the Alltech Innovation Competition, in which six university business teams in Ireland and eight university business teams in Kentucky vied for funding in the competition’s second year.
Winning ideas from the Innovation Competition include a plan for reclaiming mountaintops with switchgrass that could be used for fuel; a ‘Field Buddy’ app that would give farmers access to GPS technology while fertilizing their fields; a personal device that would detect poisonous gasses from slurry; and a ‘FuturFry’ deep fryer that would save restaurants 40 percent on annual cooking oil costs.
More details on the Lyons’ Den Innovation Fund application process will be made available in June.