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Verizon gives three innovative start-ups $1 million dollars each to advance their world-changing ideasSAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Three innovative start-ups with world-changing potential were named $1 million winners of the 2015 Powerful Answers Award contest, a year-long global challenge to discover and help bring to market technologies that show promise for addressing some of the world's greatest challenges in the emergency response, transportation and Internet of Things categories. The winners were announced today during a live event in San Francisco hosted by Chris Hardwick. Verizon awarded a total of $6 million to twelve winners. A top prize of $1 million was up for grabs in each category of the Powerful Answers Award contest, with $500,000 and $250,000 prizes awarded to one first runner-up and two second runners-up in each category. "The last ten months have been an incredible journey for all twelve of these companies and it has been truly inspiring for our team to learn so much about their technologies and potential for solving real-world issues," said John Doherty, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Verizon Ventures. "There's a lot of excitement around these ideas and we are looking forward to working with each of the winners to help make their ideas a reality." All 2015 award winners are invited to the Powerful Answers Accelerator program at BootUp Academy. This program is designed to strategically accelerate companies' growth through intensive workshops and knowledge exchange sessions that provide best practices in business planning, product development, UX/UI design, global go-to-market strategies, communications, financing and growth hacking. Learn more about the Powerful Answers Award> 2015 Powerful Answers Award winners by category: Emergency Response $1,000,000 winner Bounce Imaging - Boston, MA $500,000 first runner-up EmergenSee® - Malvern, PA $250,000 second runners-up Disaster Mesh - San Francisco, CA Lifeguard Drone - Plano, TX Internet of Things $1,000,000 winner Zizmos Technology - Palo Alto, CA $500,000 first runner-up CityTaps - lle-de-France $250,000 second runners-up Owlet - Provo, UT Transportation $1,000,000 winner Pogo - Seattle, WA $500,000 first runner-up iHelmet - Kadawatha, Sri Lanka $250,000 second runners-up i4drive - Tel Aviv, Israel Swiftmile - San Mateo, CA About Verizon Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE, Nasdaq: VZ) employs a diverse workforce of 177,900 and generated more than $127 billion in 2014 revenues. Verizon Wireless operates America's most reliable wireless network, with 110.8 million retail connections nationwide. Headquartered in New York, Verizon also provides communications and entertainment services over America's most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers integrated business solutions to customers worldwide. For more information, visit www.verizon.com/news/. VERIZON'S ONLINE NEWS CENTER: Verizon news releases, executive speeches and biographies, media contacts and other information are available at Verizon's online News Center at www.verizon.com/news/. News releases are also available through an RSS feed. To subscribe, visit www.verizon.com/about/rss-feeds/. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/verizon-gives-three-innovative-start-ups-1-million-dollars-each-to-advance-their-world-changing-ideas-300190434.html SOURCE Verizon |