DENVER, Colo. (June 17, 2014) - Varsity, a mobile application designed to help the user discover what they love through a personalized feed of events, clubs, and news based on their interests, and Malleable Medical Tech, a new type of plastic that can be used in prosthetics and orthopedic devices, each won $10,000 at Perkins Coie’s Innovative Minds award at the University of Colorado (CU) at Boulder Innovation Challenge awards on April 22, 2014.

Five teams competed for the award through the University’s New Venture Challenge program, CU’s cross-campus entrepreneurship championship sponsored by a grant through Perkins Coie’s Denver office. The program is designed to encourage students from different disciplines to create new innovative businesses. Judges for the competition included Perkins Coie senior counsels David St.John-Larkin and Norton Cutler were instrumental in providing support to students throughout the competition.

Varsity founder Devon Tivona designed a mobile app for students to find what they like through a customized feed of events, clubs, and classes based upon their interest to replace school bulletin boards and e-mails. This mobile tool would also provide universities with invaluable data on student behavior and real-time feedback on student services.

Malleable Medical Tech, founded by Philip Taynton, a materials chemist, developed a new plastic technology for the orthopedics and prosthetics industry that could lead to affordable care on a global scale. The plastic is twice as strong of traditional plastics and can be molded to make devices at half the temperature currently needed in plastics production. Devices will also cost 25 percent less than current commercially available plastics and can be produced in as little as 10 minutes.

The University of Colorado at Boulder is one of six campuses around the country, including Arizona State University, Northwestern University, the University of California-Los Angeles, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Washington, to serve as a home to the Innovative Minds competition. Innovative Minds is a “best of show” award that recognizes a student team with the strongest overall commitment to create products and services that address some of the greatest challenges facing the world today. Perkins Coie launched the program in 2011 to help advance creative thinking, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Perkins Coie is a leading international law firm that is known for providing high-value, strategic solutions and extraordinary client service on matters vital to our clients’ success. With more than 1,200 lawyers in offices across the United States and Asia, we provide a full array of corporate, commercial litigation, intellectual property, and regulatory legal advice to a broad range of clients, including many of the world’s most innovative companies and industry leaders as well as public and not-for-profit organizations.

Media Inquiries: Please email Justin Cole, Head of Media Relations.