# Championing Innovation: The Jur Startup Society Founders Awards The Jur Startup Society Founder’s Awards is a community-led initiative that provides existing online community builders, influencers, DAOs, and innovators a platform for founders to experiment with new societal models and access funds and support in their journey of building their Startup Society. \ The first cohort launched in March 2023 and the team accepted [53 Startup Society proposals](https://twitter.com/JurProject/status/1644436817465298944) covering a wide variety of use cases including societies focused on providing education, affordable housing, longevity, alternative finance, and frameworks for cooperating to develop new knowledge. A committee of five Jur pioneer citizens elected by their peers ranked all 53 proposals to create a shortlist of ten for consideration by a panel of prestigious judges: [Tim Draper](https://twitter.com/TimDraper) of Draper Capital, [Trent McConaghy](https://twitter.com/trentmc0) of Ocean Protocol, and [Ed Hesse](https://twitter.com/edhesse79) of Energy Web. The judges and the committee selected five proposals: [VitaDAO](https://www.vitadao.com/), [Continuum](https://continuum.xyz/), [Umma Finance](https://umma.finance/), [Wezesha](https://www.wezesha.co/), and[ Fair Square](https://www.fair-squares.nl/)s, who each received $2,000 USD and 1,000 $JUR along with ongoing support from the Jur team. Stay tuned for more information on the second cohort of the awards.