Innovation Grants Awarded To Respite Retreats

Howard County Executive Calvin Ball will visit each of the grant recipients, learn more about the innovations and see demonstrations.

By Kristin Danley-Greiner, Patch Staff
View the original article on Patch.com here.

HOWARD COUNTY, MD — Local organizations will be awarded eight innovation grants by Howard County during the first week of March. The grants will be pulled from the $225,000 Innovation Fund created last year. 

"Business thrives on imagination – and we wanted to do our part to support and encourage innovative ideas," said Howard County Executive Calvin Ball in a statement. "These grants not only support projects that will benefit residents but will hopefully foster a culture of inventive ideas throughout our business and non-profit community."

Ball will visit each of the site locations, learn more about each of the innovations and see demonstrations where applicable. 

The award winners include:

  • Howard County Autism Society for an Autism Hiring Program that advances neurodiversity and connects Howard County businesses to a competent, capable workforce

  • Community Ecology Institute to utilize their farm to demonstrate the innovative best practices identified by the U.S. Climate Alliance's Natural and Working Lands Challenge including agrivoltaics, biodiversity, agroforestry, and no-till farming.

  • Office of Sustainability to study lawn alternative projects and develop an outreach program.

  • American Diversity Group for a telemedicine program that eliminates many barriers to accessing healthcare by installing telemedicine application on residents' smartphones.

  • Department of Community Resources for The Instant Language Assistant Professional (ILA Pro), a real-time interpretation device that facilitates in-person and remote communication for people with differing abilities and languages.

  • Humanim to create an alternative staffing model that is employee-owned for Direct Service Providers to reduce staff turnover.

  • Respite Retreats to provide virtual reality to cancer patients that benefits rehabilitation and recovery, pain relief, lessens anxiety, creates a meditative experience, and is also shown to boost the effectiveness of other medical treatments. 

  • STEERTech and the Economic Development Authority to use autonomous vehicles for rapid refueling of an electric vehicle fleet, which will improve overall efficiency.

NewsMichelle ZahnRespite RetreatsAwards, News, Howard County