Skin protection entrepreneur wins major prize at Flinders University’s eNVIe awards
SKIN protection entrepreneur Dylan Manov has taken out the major prize at this year’s eNVIe awards.
SKIN protection entrepreneur Dylan Manov has taken out the major prize at this year’s eNVIe awards.
Mr Manov’s Happy Skin enterprise provides organisations with low-cost and convenient sunscreen dispensers that can be installed in public spaces including schools, construction sites, sporting grounds and beaches.
The gold eNVIe award winner is one of 23 start-ups to recently complete the metropolitan round of Flinders University’s Venture Dorm program run by its New Venture Institute (NVI).
The program provides new businesses with access to co-working spaces and technology, and expert guidance.
“Venture Dorm was an incredible experience from start to finish,” Mr Manov said.
“Winning is a validation of all that hard work and how far Happy Skin has come from when it was just an idea.”
Mr Manov’s prize package of $40,000 includes a seat on Flinders’ annual NVI US innovation mission.
He will be joined on the trip by other winners at last night’s awards ceremony, as well as the Limestone Coast eNVIe winners, who will be announced in December at Mount Gambier.
They will visit San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Austin, where they will meet other business founders and leaders and attend more than 30 events, pitch competitions, site visits and networking events.
Luke Penman - the founder of internet radio channel Play Pause Play - took out the silver eNVIe at last night’s event, while the people’s choice award went to Dean McGurgan, who has invented an easy to install, self-closing ceiling vent that can reduce heating costs by up to 20 per cent.
Flinders University Vice-Chancellor Professor Colin Stirling paid tribute to the winners.
“Flinders has a unique capacity to inspire bold new ways of thinking, and to develop people who are capable of changing industries, and creating new businesses and the jobs that go with them,” he said.
“At our NVI we have done exactly this, enabling more than 300 start-up enterprises and training thousands of innovators and entrepreneurs.”
Other finalists at this year’s eNVIes included the national Children’s Entertainers Association, social enterprise Conscious Living Project, which helps people “connect, find meaning and live consciously”, and Prison Gothic, which is reviving traditional Chinese font design for modern day use.
Flinders University’s NVI was recognised earlier this year as a global entrepreneurial incubator leader in the Asia Pacific region by university benchmarking company UBI Global.