Twelve fourth-year student teams from the Faculty of Engineering competed in this year’s Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Awards for Capstone Design.
They pitched their startup ideas to a panel of judges with six teams winning $12,000 and six winning $5,000.
With just three minutes per pitch, each team unveiled ideas that ranged from an app and sensors to increase braille accessibility to a device that connects to helicopters to reduce spin during rescue operations.
“It's a great way to get familiar with the process of acquiring funds for your project and pitching it to a broad audience,” says Nube Torres, a fourth-year nanotechnology student from the GeneDetek team. “Funding was a big challenge during the development of our project but after the competition, my team's spirit was uplifted.”
The pitch competition was launched in 2014 by the Esch Foundation to support creative and entrepreneurial senior engineering students who are pursuing research and development and its commercialization for the benefit of Canada.
Go to A decade of winning ideas for the full story.