Siddharth Pannir, founder of GenH of Somerville, center, is presented a check of $40,000 from Lever's Sustainability Challanege for entrepreneurs.

Executive Director Jeffrey Thomas says more than 100 companies and startups have competed for grants in Lever's entrepreneurial competitions.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Economic development non-profit Lever celebrated a milestone of granting $1 million to entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, and startups recently after concluding its sustainability challenge at Berkshire Community College.

GenH of Somerville was victorious over three other companies, securing a $40,000 innovation grant for its hydropower clean energy systems.

"It's an energy technology company to deal with the volatile climate," GenH founder and engineer Siddharth Pannir said on Dec. 2.

"And what that means is right now the only technologies that can deal with that is fossil fuels, like natural gas, coal.  Those are the only ones that provide stable power but they're not clean so we figured out how to do that for renewables."

GenH created what is called a "rapidly deployable and modular" hydropower system called Adaptive Hydro, which is designed to electrify non-powered dams and canal heads without fixed infrastructure.

Reportedly, only 3 percent of dams in the country are electrified.

Pannir said he was overwhelmed by the win — especially because the competition was tough. His company faced off against Prisere LLC of Boston, ModLEV of Medford, and CurbHub of Walpole.

Runner-up Prisere develops technology for the reinsurance industry to deal with climate challenges.

"So for example, if you have a super-insulated home and there's a power outage, if your home can retain the heat, which mine did, you're less likely to have pipes freeze and burst and cause water damage and file an insurance claim," founder and CEO Donna Childs explained, adding that if the software algorithm can quantify that benefit then the underwriter can figure out an incentive to offer.

Lever Executive Director Jeffrey Thomas has been "absolutely astounded" by the participation in the 21 entrepreneurial challenges that have been held. More than 100 companies from a range of industries have competed, with 27 winning grants.

"We get to have a lot of fun, that should be obvious, we get a front-row seat for emerging technology," he said.

"And the final surprise in this whole program that we've been doing is that we've learned that we can deliver valuable accelerated resources to entrepreneurs throughout the commonwealth of Massachusetts. That was unanticipated. That came up because of the pandemic."

The organization switched to remote challenges over Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic and was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked, with some having more than a dozen companies in one cohort.

"I think most significantly, it's shown to me, at least, that Lever can deliver value to entrepreneurs regardless of where they're located," Thomas said. "And that's important for our ecosystem here in Berkshire County."

Several past challenge winners spoke of how the grants have advanced their companies.

Chris Kapiloff of LTI Smart Glass in Pittsfield, winner of the 2019 intrapreneur challenge, said the program allowed him to take an untested idea and work through its problems to help adjust a process that had been unchanged for years.

"The end result allowed us to make a better product, increase warranty time and compete more fiercely in a crowded marketplace," he said.

Kapiloff also spoke of the struggles of being a business owner or entrepreneur and the misconceptions that they take home huge checks and have unlimited free time.

"I think it's hard to be a small business owner and entrepreneur and innovator in general," said Lever Chairman James Birge, president of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.

"Especially over the last few years in this changing environment of the labor force and the way that people are thinking about work, supply chain issues. It's striking to me the real challenges there are for entrepreneurs and the way that you will overcome those challenges is really quite impressive."

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