TEDxUofM Award for Innovation
The TEDxUofM Award for Innovation celebrates putting imaginative and ingenious ideas into impactful action. TEDxUofM awards this annual award of $1,000 to a group or individual in the UofM community to support their innovative and inspirational idea to make a difference. The TEDxUofM Award for Innovation winner is awarded on stage at our annual conference.
Apply for our 2023 TEDxUofM Award for Innovation!
WINNER 2022:
Camp Kesem
Camp Kesem is based on the concept of supporting kids through and beyond their parent's cancer diagnosis. The flagship program of this organization is a week of free summer camp for kids whose parents have or have had cancer. The goal is to give kids a supportive place for them to have fun, despite the stress of their parent's condition. Camp Kesem at the University of Michigan secures the campsite, recruits camper families, recruits UM student volunteers to staff the program as counselors for free, executes all the fundraising throughout the year to fundraise an over $100,000 budget, among many other things. The vision for Kesem is a community of individuals supporting each other in a healing environment. Many campers attend when they are young and continue attending until they are 18. A number of their current counselors were campers for years before becoming counselors. More than anything, they seek to help campers not feel alone in a time that is isolating and frightening and prove that a beautiful community can come together in times of crisis.
Allison Powell and Kyle Bettinger
PuffBarry is an alternative communication device for people with ALS or other muscular degenerative diseases. The device measures puffs of air through the nasal cavity and uses a Morse code like structure to allow patients to create sentences. Allison and Kyle were inspired to make this device after a good family friend, Dr. Michael Barry, passed away from ALS. After receiving the TEDxUofM Award for Innovation, Allison and Kyle went on to win The Start-Up, a competition hosted by the Center for Entrepreneurship at UofM. Allison also had the opportunity to give her very own TED talk at TEDxTraverseCity, which can be seen here.