Conrad School Competitions Round-Up - Fall 2021

Conrad School students continue to be a force to reckoned with on the student pitch competition circuit — both on and off-campus. We are thrilled to share some of the highlights from this fall 2021 term.

Canadian Council for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (CCSBE) Student Pitch Competition

The CCSBE Student Pitch Competition is typically held in person. Like most competitions these days, it took place virtually this year with college and university students from across Canada participating. The top 20 finalists included seven teams from the Conrad School. Five of the teams were led by current Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) students while two teams were led by current and former BET 300 and Enterprise Co-op students.

Ayswarya Ashok Kumar, MBET student and founder of Halleyx, a blockchain-enabled SaaS platform to automate the background verification process for employers, won the People's Choice Award and $500 for her venture.

Congratulations Ayswarya!

RBC EPIC Business Model Competition (BMC)

The 2021 RBC EPIC BMC was unique compared to previous years. Not only were our students overwhelming represented among finalists (seven out of 21!) but the keynote speaker was Amr Abdelgawad, MBET ’17 alumni, COO and Co-Founder of NERv Technology Inc. and former EPIC BMC winner.

All of our seven teams were comprised of current and former BET 300 and Enterprise Co-op students. Aftersell, an e-commerce venture won the top prize of $10,000 and the People’s Choice Award.

Congratulations Landon, Dhruv, Varun and Armon!

NU National Student Award for Outstanding Social Entrepreneurship

Created by the Trico Charitable Foundation and hosted by the University of Calgary, Trico Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Centre at the Haskayne School of Business this is the inaugural year for the National Student Award for Outstanding Social Entrepreneurship.

Conrad School and Waterloo Mechanical Engineering students Peter Cornelisse and Lucas Godkin are the founders of Hydro House and winners of the top prize of $25,000 for their venture. Both of these students are completing the BET 300, Foundations of Venture Creation course this term.

Congratulations Peter and Lucas!

Concept $5K

Our students continued the theme of outstanding representation in competitions this term with the Concept $5k. All eight semi-finalists – yes, every single one – are teams comprised of current and former undergraduate BET 300 and/or BET 320 and graduate MBET students. Here is a video interview with Learnlist founder Aman Mathur. You can check out the Concept Blog to see interviews with the winning founders.

Congratulations to teams, Learnlist, PERCare, Hydro House and Microbuild all of whom have won $5000 CAD for their ventures!

Problem Pitch

Yvonne Osagie is a current, part-time MBET student and founder of Medical Melanin. Yvonne is digging deep into the important problem of Women of Colour (WOC) being misdiagnosed at a greater rate than non-WOC. She took the top prize this term at the Problem Lab’s Quantum Valley Investments® Fall 2021 Problem Pitch. Learn more about this terms competition as well as Yvonne and her venture on the Problem Lab blog.

Congratulations Yvonne!

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Conrad School undergrads who competed and won in this term’s competitions are either current or former Enterprise Co-op, BET 300 Foundations of Venture Creation and/or BET 320 Entrepreneurial Strategy students. Graduate students from the Conrad School who competed this term are currently completing the Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) degree program.