On April 22, Nathan Drew will speak to a class of undergraduate entrepreneurs at the University of Iowa. The site of the presentation — the Bedell Entrepreneurship Learning Laboratory — still holds a special place in his heart.

S5G Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical eye drop compound that provides ocular protection, took home $25,000 for first place in the Innovation Challenge graduate/faculty/staff/incubator startup division at the University of Iowa John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center award’s event April 13 at MERGE in Iowa City, Iowa.

HYRD, an app that brings recently relocated adults together over common interests and group events to decrease loneliness, won the $1,000 first prize at University of Iowa John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center’s (Iowa JPEC) Startup Games on March 6 at the Hilton Garden Inn Iowa City Downtown University.

For nine years after earning a bachelor’s degree, Dana Njenga worked eight hours a day, five days a week, repeating the cycle week, after week, after monotonous week. But when the time came for rest and relaxation, Njenga, her husband, and three children rarely answered the call.