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Our 2016 Amber Grant Finalists

Wednesday, January 18th, 2017

After much debate amongst our Advisory board we’ve narrowed down our Amber Grant Finalists to Three. Congrats to NAJMTEK, GloveStix, and Yellow Scope! Please read to learn more about these inspiring women and their businesses.

NAJMTEK

 

Applicant: Sophie Ennadi – Visit NAJMTEK’s website here.

When Sophie’s daughter was six years old she was diagnosed with dyslexia. With Sophie’s strong background in engineering alongside 12 years of experience in product development she saw this as an opportunity. She wanted to create an adaptive and innovative learning tool for dyslexic people, to help them learn, read, and work without having dyslexia in the way. This is how the Ubook was created.

The UBook is the first all-in-one multi-touch laptop, an interactive technology that includes the first ever neurological “sign alphabet”, and assistive apps, especially designed for people having dyslexia to help them learn, work, and communicate with others without having dyslexia in the way.

Glove Stix

 

Applicant: Krista Woods – Visit GloveStix’s website here.

Have you ever caught a whiff of old sports gear? It smells awful. The smell is caused by bacteria that lives in the humid air of your sports gear. And every time you sweat… that odor increases. Most types of gloves and shoes are primarily made of leather making them virtually impossible to clean without compromising the shape or comfort to the athlete. Enter, GloveStix. GloveStix, are a patent pending odor management system for smelly sports gear. When placed into gloves or shoes after practice or games they absorb harmful moisture, eliminate odors and inhibit 99.9% of odor-causing bacteria growth in about 24 hrs.

Yellow Scope

 

Applicant: Marcie Colledge & Kelly McCollum – Visit Yellow Scope’s website here.

Yellow Scope was founded in 2014 by scientists and moms, Marcie Colledge and Kelly McCollum. Marcie and Kelly met in 2008 at their children’s elementary school as volunteers running the school’s STEM programs, including Family Science Nights and the Science Fair. Their “aha moment” was realizing how well they work together and how passionate they both are about science, girls, and education. Over the years, this grew into an idea to build a company that would help young girls fall in love with science. Thus Yellow Scope was born! At Yellow Scope, they make rigorous, creative (and fun!) science kits for girls. Each kit is lovingly assembled by hand in Portland, Oregon.

We will be announcing our second annual Amber Grant winner very soon – Stay Tuned!

Voting has already begun for our next Amber Grant on our voting page. So please stop by there and read about our newest qualification grant winners.

July 2016 Qualification Grant Finalists

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2016

najmtek
NAJMTEK
Sophie Ennadi
website

Najmtek is currently working on an adaptive and innovative learning tool for dyslexic people, to help them learn, read, and work without having dyslexia in the way. The name of the device is called the Ubook, and it is an all-in-one multi-touch, multi-language fully customizable laptop with a dual screen keyboard. While the Ubook’s incredible features go far beyond this (the Ubook also provides applications with its dual screen component for almost any industry: medicine, education, business, architecture, etc.), Sophie’s personal experience having a daughter with dyslexia is what prompted her to pursue this project.

girls at work
Girls at Work, Inc.
Elaine Hamel
website

Girls at Work is a not-for-profit that provides girls with a safe and supportive environment to step out of their comfort zones and to build with other girls. Not only do they discover how capable they are, they also discover how exciting it is to work as part of a team toward a common goal.

Nativ Wings Catering
Native Wings of Health
Lila Boone
website

Lila lives in a rural, low income country town in North Eastern North Carolina. In that area, due to generational traditions, the families eat very unhealthy. (Enormous amount of Pork, Fried Foods, still cooking with Lard & really bad cooking practices). Both adults AND children have an Alarming high rate of Obesity, Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, etc.

This is why Lila started the company, Native Wings of Health, to open doors and teach members of the community that healthier options are Affordable and delicious.

uniflo
ABCD Capital LLC
Aarti Mehta
website

Uniflo was created by a first-time mom and physician, Aarti. She wanted to feed her child breast milk as it was important to her and her husband. Unfortunately, it was difficult to determine how much her baby would drink during each feeding. After each feeding there was significant unconsumed liquid remaining in the bottle. But because of the baby’s back wash reentering the bottle, they were concerned about reusing the liquid and had to discard the remaining milk.

It’s difficult for many moms to produce excessive quantities of breastmilk and using formula can be very expensive. So after searching for potential solutions Aarti decided to create a device on her own, (called Uniflo) that would prevent backwash from reentering the bottle and as a result keeping the remaining liquid unused. Allowing her to feel more comfortable reusing the liquid, and in the process, saving significant effort and money. At that point her Uniflo Technology was born!

naked-nomore-w500-o
Diaper Diva Designs
Laura Toto
website

Laura’s journey began when her third child turned one and discovered her new found ability to get naked on her own. She couldn’t have been less interested in potty training and it became quite a “game”. For two months her child thwarted her every effort to keep her clothed and diapered. Nap after nap, bedtime after bedtime, Laura would walk into her room to find her kids diaper in a corner, clothes in another, along with an indescribable mess to clean up. With Laura’s sanity wearing thin she searched online. She found a few suggestions but nothing worked.

After some time Laura got the idea to cut the feet off of old pajamas, put them on her backwards and voila! It worked like a charm. After some tweaking to the outfit the Naked No More onesie was born.

ExplorerChickAdventureCO
Explorer Chick Adventure Co
Nicki Bruckmann
website

Explorer Chick Adventure Co is a travel company exclusively for women founded by Nicki Bruckmann. Her travel company plans to take women on epic adventures, in incredible parts of the world so women can live new experiences and discover new strengths while surrounded by a community of equally adventurous women.

Congrats to our July Qualification Grant Finalists and as always, thank you for reading! Remember we award a grant every month – if interested, here’s the link to apply!

Stay tuned: We will be announcing the winner next week!

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What people are saying about WomensNet

Forbes

“You have to be in it to win it...seize the opportunity and apply.”

Nerd Wallet

“Every month, WomensNet awards three $10,000 Amber Grants to women-owned businesses. At the end of each year, monthly grant winners are eligible to receive one of three $25,000 annual grants.”

Score

“Launched 20 years ago this grant honors the memory of a young woman who wanted to be an entrepreneur but died at age 19 before she could achieve her goal.”

CNN

“The Amber Grant offers three $10,000 grants to women-owned businesses each month. Then, at the end of each year, WomensNet gives an additional $25,000 to three grant winners from that year.”

Essence Magazine

“This organization offers monthly grants of up to $10,000 to support female entrepreneurs starting businesses. Those who qualify for these grants are also in the running for a yearly $25,000 grant.”