Photos by Nick Serpa
Photos Courtesy of the city of Peoria

Innovation Night, a yearly celebration of entrepreneurship and innovation happening in the West Valley, was a success and one of the largest ones to date.

Held at the Colonnade at Peoria Sports Complex last month, this year they ramped things up to highlight the amazing things happening in the West Valley with high school entrepreneurs, a local business pop up market, free food, and drink tickets and the first Ampie Awards!

The Ampie Awards were created to celebrate local entrepreneurship and highlight innovation in the West Valley.

The winners and finalists are as follows:
• The Entrepreneurship Champion category was awarded to Gabriela Zazueta of Tassels Poms & Love. Tassels Poms & Love offers handcrafted items like tassels, charms, and eco friendly handbags. tasselspomsandlove.com.
• The Out of the Box category was awarded to Hurshneet and Pravneet Chadha of Project Smile AZ. A nonprofit, Project Smile AZ is helping spread smiles with simple acts of kindness that anyone, anywhere can do. projectsmileaz.org.
• The Creator category was awarded to Katie Roe of Upper West Side Phoenix. This grassroots, online initiative to help re-brand the northwest Valley was created by Roe to help revitalize the area with non-chain appeal. facebook.com/upperwestsidephx
• The Best Pitch category was awarded to Chris Damron of MyLifeMobile. MyLifeMobile is a platform to make your life easier by using artificial intelligence to automatically create a list of things to do near year. mylifemobile.net.

Finalists for the Entrepreneurship Champion category included Bruce Lev, Mahesh Vinayagam, Misty Stachel, Jenavi Kasper, Cayden Wilheim, Haley Westfall, Tish Times, Caron Sada, Melissa Drake, and Devarshan Patel.

Finalists for Out of the Box category included Tony Souris, TheaterWorks, Gastromé Market, Brandon Lev, Misty Stachel, Shantoya Thomas, and John Avila.

Finalists for Creator category included Kahlil Muhammad, Jose and Brittany Acevedo of Finding Arizona Podcast, Gabriela Zazueta, and Isaac Easley.