The Memorial Centre for Entrepreneurship is adding two awards to its annual Woodward Cup competition, including one that aims to increase participation by women and non-binary students.

The entrepreneurship hub at Memorial University of Newfoundland said via an article in The Gazette that the 2022 Woodward Cup would feature an Entrepreneurship Award for women or non-binary leadership and an entrepreneurship award for an early-stage Idea. The winners of these awards will each receive $2,500.

The Woodward Cup is the annual competition that presents cash and in-kind services to MUN students who launched startups at the university and plan to develop them into companies once they graduate. The winner and runner-up receive cash prizes of $25,000 and $15,000 respectively, as well as in-kind services.

“We’ve heard repeatedly from women that they didn’t feel they were ready to apply to the Mel Woodward Cup, even though they tend to do very well when they do participate,” said MCE Director Florian Villaumé in the article. “We hope this will encourage students, especially women and non-binary students, to apply even if they think their idea is very early.”

The Woodward Cup began five years ago to provide seed funding for student-led businesses, and has become a major event in the St. John’s startup calendar. The prize money comes from funds provided by the family of the late Mel Woodward, a Memorial alumnus and pillar of the Newfoundland and Labrador construction industry.

The two new awards are funded by the Fry Family Foundation, which focuses on leadership development in and beyond Newfoundland and Labrador.

You can find more details about the Woodward Cup and register here. The deadline to register is March 1, and the event will be held on March 23.

Past winners of the competition include CoLab Software, which was accepted into the Y Combinator accelerator in 2019 and this year raised $21 million, and BreatheSuite, which has been accepted into the Lazaridis Scaleup program.