OVERLAND PARK, Kansas, Jan. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — Sprint (NYSE: S) and Prince Royce announced today Amanda da Silva de Almeida as the grand prize winner of #LiveUnlimited The Dreams Academy music contest. Amanda from Roselle, New Jersey, will receive $10,000, a one-on-one mentorship session with Prince Royce and a writing and recording session with producers Jean Rodriguez and Danny Flores from COASTCITY. Runners-up David Mejorado from El Paso, Texas and Luis Fabian Lara from Casa Grande, Arizona, will each receive $5,000.

Photo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/635462/Sprint_The_Dreams_Academy.jpg

Last December, Sprint and Prince Royce teamed up to launch the first phase of #LiveUnlimited The Dreams Academy. The program provides aspiring artists and innovators resources – including grants and mentorship opportunities – to pursue their ambitions.

The first contest encouraged musical artists and bands to submit a video entry showcasing their talent. Aspiring artists nationwide submitted personal videos to enter the contest. The public helped narrow down the top-10 finalists by voting for their favorite, and from those top-10 finalists Prince Royce and Sprint selected the grand-prize winner and two runners-up.

“It was an honor for me to help select the winners as it was a moment to pay it forward to aspiring, talented artists who are full of determination and share a passion for music,” said Prince Royce. “It’s been a nostalgic experience teaming up with the brand that helped ignite my career and wants to do the same for others in our community!”

“Congratulations to all of our winners,” said Alberto Lorente, Vice President of Multicultural Marketing at Sprint. “The caliber of talent from the aspiring artists was so impressive, and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for this amazing program as we meet and help exceptional community members pursue their dreams.”

Additional categories within the program will be added in the coming months and may include such topics as technology, entrepreneurship and community activism.

Make sure to visit sprint.com/dreams or follow @SprintLatino on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for updates on #LiveUnlimited The Dreams Academy program.

GRAND-PRIZE WINNER
Amanda da Silva de Almeida from Roselle, NJ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vXaOKb8ZQE

Amanda is originally from Brazil and her passion and love for music doesn’t stop at singing. She writes her own music and plays the keyboard and guitar. At 13 years old, she won her first talent show by performing a song she wrote herself. The recognition inspired her to pursue music and share her personal stories with the world.

She is currently in her last semester at Kean University, Union, New Jersey, and she plans to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in cellular and molecular biology.

RUNNERS-UP
David Mejorado from El Paso, TX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TIrvqaDHAE

David Mejorado has a dream of becoming a recording artist that will inspire others as an example that anything is possible when you believe and persist without limits. Over the past year, he’s released two singles “Alguien Más” and “No Quiero Saber” and is currently working to record a new demo.

Luis Fabián Lara from Casa Grande, Arizona
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myhN90kIZxs

For Luis Fabián Lara, music is in his blood as he comes from a family of musicians. He is currently a student that continues to make time for music because being on stage and creating music makes him feel free and closer to one day paying it forward for another aspiring artist.

About Sprint
Sprint (NYSE: S) is a communications services company that creates more and better ways to connect its customers to the things they care about most. Sprint served 54 million connections as of Sept. 30, 2017, and is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including the first wireless 4G service from a national carrier in the United States; leading no-contract brands including Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, and Assurance Wireless; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. You can learn more and visit Sprint at www.sprint.com or www.facebook.com/sprint and www.twitter.com/sprint.

About Prince Royce
In the past 7 years, multi-platinum award-winning, singer and songwriter Prince Royce has become a bonafide Latin superstar, scoring 15 number one radio hits, 22 Latin Billboard Awards, 19 Premio lo Nuestro Awards (Univision), 19 Premios Juventud Awards (Univision), 6 Latin AMAs, and 11 Latin Grammy nominations.  

Royce has a massive fan base with more than 2 billion streams online, over 45 million followers on social media and he has sold out some of the most prestigious venues in Latin America and the US.

His latest album, FIVE, was released in February 2017 and is Royce’s fifth career album. The record debuted at #1 on Billboards Latin Albums chart and earned Royce the highest first-week sales of any Latin album in the two years prior to the release. The production, was preceded by four hit singles, “Culpa al Corazón”, “La Carretera”, “Moneda”, “Deja vu” and includes a plethora of wonderful collaborations with Shakira, Zendaya, Chris Brown, SpiffTV, Farruko, Gente de Zona, Gerardo Ortíz and Arturo Sandoval. The album has been certified Double Platinum by the RIAA in the United States and has garnered multiple international certifications. FIVE, made the Top Latin Albums list at Billboard’s coveted end of year issue and Billboard also named Royce one of the Top Latin Artists of 2017.  

Some of his other creative collaborations include: Jennifer Lopez, Selena Gomez, Snoop Dogg, Pitbull, Thalia, Maná, Daddy Yankee, among others. Prince Royce has also started to purse his acting career and co-starred as Peter in the Fox Live musical broadcast of “The Passion” in 2016 and was part of the cast of Hulu’s hit series, “East Los High”. 2017 also brought other accolades including his induction into the Bronx Hall of Fame and running the New York City Marathon to raise funds and awareness or education in public schools and kidney disease.  

Follow Prince Royce:
www.princeroyce.com
www.facebook.com/princeroyce
www.twitter.com/princeroyce
www.instagram.com/princeroyce
www.youtube.com/PrinceRoyceVEVO

About COASTCITY
Coastal vibes with a city attitude. That’s probably the best way to describe the essence of COASTCITY. The Grammy nominated artist-production duo is comprised of Jean Rodríguez and Danny Flores, two talented and multi-faceted musicians who created an avant-garde bilingual musical project known as COASTCITY.

While working together on Jean’s third studio album, Rodríguez and Flores realized what they were creating was simply magic. It was then they decided to put Jean’s album on hold and embark on a joint musical venture establishing themselves as a production-artist duo.  Creating their own musical lane, both lyrically and through a fresh and innovative sound, they created a new genre and coined the term “soul caribeño” (Caribbean soul) to describe their music. Dubbed the “Latino N.E.R.D.”, individually and/or together COASTCITY has worked with renowned artists such as:  Beyoncé, Shakira, Luis Fonsi, J Balvin, Marc Anthony, Prince Royce, Chris Brown, Juanes, TreySongz, and Yandel, amongst others. 

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SOURCE Sprint