“Innovation is absolutely critical to UofL’s mission,” said UofL President Neeli Bendapudi. “It’s what drives us and inspires us. Our three most important goals as a university are to be a great place to learn, to work and to invest, and the work of these innovators contributes to all three.”Ěý

The second annual event, hosted virtually this year by the and its technology transfer arm, the honored UofL innovators who had recently been awarded a patent or whose technology had been licensed to a company for commercialization in fiscal year 2020, which ended June 30, 2020.Ěý

Two large awards were also presented: Paula Bates was given the Innovator of the Year Award, and Theo Edmonds, Brad Shuck and Laura Weingartner all accepted Trailblazer awards on behalf of their teams. Each was delivered a red-and-black glass flame — the symbol for the event.

“Our office, and UofL as a whole, are committed to taking the brilliant, groundbreaking research happening on our campus out of the lab, out of the classroom, and translating it into inventions and products that improve the way we work and live,” said Executive Vice President for Research and Innovation, Kevin Gardner. “And, this past year, our researchers worked tirelessly to develop innovations that in a very real way, may save lives — all while dealing with the added challenges of COVID-19.”Ěý

Innovator of the Year, Bates, is a serial inventor and , known for a long track record of developing strong partnerships with industry to commercialize her technologies. In 2020, she partnered with other UofL innovators to develop a potential breakthrough in our fight against COVID-19 that is believed to block the virus from infecting human cells. The technologyĚý to a now publicly-traded biomedical company, which is working with UofL to further develop it for market.

As for the Trailblazers, who are awarded for work in new areas of innovation for UofL, Edmonds accepted the award for the Cultural Wellbeing Index, a tool that helps companies improve corporate culture and organizational wellbeing. To commercialize the technology, Edmonds launched , UofL’s .

Shuck accepted for the Employee Engagement Scale, a software that helps companies measure workforce engagement. The technology’s non-exclusive license to startup Unitonomy marks the — followed by the second and third, also secured by Shuck, when the technology was licensed to two other companies in the same year.

Lastly, Weingartner accepted the award for “,” a first-of-its-kind manual aimed at better-training future medical professionals on caring for LGBTQ and other non-normative patients. The manual is meant to provide resources and guidance so that medical schools, residencies and continuing medical education programs across the country are able to implement training and provide better resources for more equitable care.

All told, fiscal year 2020 was the at UofL, with a total income of $9.4 million driven by a strong year for startups and deals. It also was UofL’s best year on-record for competitive research funding, with total new awards of $170 million.

“This was a great year for innovation and research — also our best year on record,” said Allen Morris, executive director of the Commercialization EPI-Center. “Our innovators all share in that success, and I look forward to continuing that work together in 2021.”

The Bezos FamilyĚýFoundation has given $30,000, and the C.E. and S. Foundation has provided $15,000 to support the KWC’s health and wellbeing innovation programming for high schoolers throughout the state.

KWC aims to get students excited about public health careers, while they collaborate to solve some of Kentucky’s most pressing barriers to wellbeing. Using STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) tools, KWC focuses on both technical skills, such as research and digital programming, along with human skills, such as emotional intelligence and complex problem solving.

Theo Edmonds, director of CCP, said, “We hope that KWC will enhance connections, enable action and nurture creativity in young people, moving them toward careers in the health sciences across the state of Kentucky.”

CCP will begin with a small prototype phase in Spring 2021 with partners from Jefferson County Public Schools and Breathitt County Schools. Some of the learning modules are being created with national partners like the Aspen Institute, while others will be delivered through regional partnerships. The program also will include enhancements for students and teachers to improve their own personal wellbeing. The digital, fully online platform will launch in the 2021-22 academic year.

“The style of leadership that the Kentucky Wellbeing Challenge seeks is thoughtful and catalytic. By pairing student contribution with true community need, the program is poised to drive important youth-led change across the state of Kentucky and help improve community health and wellbeing,” said Chris Plutte, managing director, Bezos Family Foundation.

The KWC is part of the Center for Creative Placehealing’s efforts to cultivate a talent pipeline of next-generation public health entrepreneurs, and is one of several initiatives supported by the NSF-funded Center for Health Organization Transformation based in the School of Public Health & Information Sciences.

The startup — called , for “Underestimated People Of Purpose” — is built around a new cultural well-being survey and predictive analytics framework developed by UofL researchers Theo Edmonds, Cameron Lister, Molly O’Keefe and Sonali Salunkhe, along with Xian Brooks from the UofL Office of Diversity and Inclusion.Ěý

The framework, Edmonds said, can help companies understand and improve their cultural well-being, which can be a critical advantage in recruiting, retaining and motivating top talent, driving innovation and surviving rapid, unexpected changes.

“As the of COVID-19 has disrupted everything, every company must become an entrepreneurial company again,” said Edmonds, research team leader and a co-founder of UPOP. “Economic resilience depends on cultural well-being and finding new ways to connect and co-create value with all stakeholders — both inside and outside the company.”

The cultural analytics technology measures three key areas: cultural actions (creativity and curiosity of employees); bridging actions (inclusion, hope, trust, belonging and health-related quality of life); and growth actions (social and economic value creation).

UPOP is launching with a national, COVID-19 specific survey, and plans to share results with founders, venture capitalists, industry groups, policymakers, higher education leaders and corporate executives in a series of briefs and webinars in late summer.

“One of the worthiest innovation challenges in the months and years ahead will be in creating new forms of cultural well-being in our places and spaces,” said UPOP Board Chair, Dayna Neumann. “Cultural well-being is not about changing what came before, it’s about creating what comes next, together.”

The Cultural Well-being Index intellectual property is protected through , which works to commercialize university inventions by working with industry and entrepreneurs. UPOP worked with the EPI-Center to obtain an exclusive license.

UPOP is UofL’s first public benefit corporation spin-out. This means that UPOP is organized to devote some of its profits to supporting underrepresented and underestimated public health and humanities entrepreneurs and to supporting advanced research on workforce culture, resiliency and inclusive innovation. Edmonds said the company also is a certified LGBT Business Enterprise through the