Congratulations to  Jing Zhang (m. 2009) on winning the Women's Entrepreneur Award at the 2013 Rice Business Plan Competition.  Jing, who recently completed her PhD in Professor Chris Abell's group in the Department of Chemistry, co-founded AQDOT and was awarded this prestigious prize worth $20,000 in the finale gala at the Westin Galleria Conference Centre, Houston, Texas.  Earlier in the afternoon her team, AQDOT, fought its way into the finals, pitching to over 500 investors and entrepeneurs,.  The team, which also includes Dr Roger Coulston from the Scherman Group, was awarded fifth place with a cash prize of $4,000.

More than 600 applications were sumbitted to the 2013 Business Plan Competition, which is supported by more than 130 corporate and private sponsors.  Venture capitalists and other investors from around the USA volunteer their time to judge the competition, with the majority of the 250 or so judges coming from the investment sector.

In addition it has just been announced that AQDOT has won the Royal Society of Chemistry Emerging Technology Award.