​During the Innovation Celebration event last night six new teams were announced as finalists for the second round of the GENIUS NY program. They will move into The Tech Garden in January to begin competing for $3 million in prizes. The companies, which are developing innovations in unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), were selected from a pool of more than 250 submissions. Of the six finalists one team is international, one team is woman co-founded and one team is from Central New York.

GENIUS NY hosted a final pitch event for its round one teams. The Innovation Celebration event held at the CNY Biotech Accelerator in Syracuse brought together upstate investors, community leaders and program partners, and was sponsored by The Tech Garden, Upstate Venture Connect and Upstate Capital Association.

What a year it has been for the first round of GENIUS NY finalists. They were welcomed to Central New York back in January to start the year-long accelerator focused on unmanned aerial systems (UAS). They are now closing in on graduation as GENIUS NY 2.0 will soon select six more UAS teams for next year's program.