Palm Desert, CA – Submissions for the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2017 InnovateHER
Challenge, hosted locally by the Coachella Valley Women’s Business Center are now being accepted through Monday, May 8, 2017.

InnovateHER is a national prize competition focused on products and services that help impact and empower the lives of women and families. To meet the Challenge criteria, products or services must have a measurable impact on the lives of women and families (30%), have the potential for commercialization (40%), and fill a need in the marketplace (30%). The competition is open to U.S. citizens and legal residents 18 years or older. Two winners from the local competition will advance to the national level for further competition and a chance to win $70,000 in prizes: $40,000 for first place, $20,000 for second place, and $10,000 for third place.

Applications are now available on the CVWBC website along with the official Challenge rules. Submissions for the 2017 InnovateHER Challenge must include the following:

• Completed application form, signed by at least one of the legal owners of the business
• Comprehensive business plan of no more than 20 pages, which must clearly demonstrate how the product or service meets the three Challenge criteria
• Completed applications are available for download at: http://www.cvwbc.org/images/InnovateHer_applicationWord2_fillable.pdf Submissions must be received by 5 p.m. on Monday, May 8, 2017. Late entries and incomplete submissions will not be accepted.

After a review of the submissions and scoring of the business plans, finalists will be notified no later than May 12. Finalists will be invited to make a five minute presentation to CVWBC’s judges on Thursday, May 18. One winner will be selected from this group and those entries will advance to the national competition for consideration.

The Coachella Valley Women’s Business Center, 77806 Flora Road, Suite A in Palm Desert, is a program of the Inland Empire Center for Entrepreneurship (IECE) at Cal State San Bernardino. Housed in the Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration, IECE, which administers the program in collaboration with the U.S. Small Business Administration, is inland Southern California’s leading organization dedicated to supporting and promoting entrepreneurship. The CVWBC provides business counseling, training and mentoring designed for women business owners.

The Coachella Valley Women’s Business Center hours are Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday by appointment only. For more information, visit the CVWBC website at www.cvwbc.org<http://www.cvwbc.org> or contact Kim Scanlan at kscanlan@cvwbc.org<mailto:kscanlan@cvwbc.org> (760) 345-9200.

For more information on Cal State San Bernardino, contact the university’s Office of Strategic Communication at (909) 537-5007 and visit news.csusb.edu.