Out of a total of 72 applications received at the Fall 2022 Velocity $5K competition, 23 student ventures were selected as semifinalists, then eight teams pitched during this week's finals.
The finals included five team members who are or were Conrad School students from both the Enterprise Co-op (E Co-op) or Bridging Entrepreneurs to Students (BETS) programs. Four of these student teams brought home $5,000 each at the end of the afternoon.
A representative from each team prepared a 3-minute pitch in front of three experienced judges, followed by a 3-minute Q&A session. The semifinals were held on November 9th and 10th, and eight finalists were chosen to pitch again in front of hundreds of supporters and guests only two weeks later.
Meet the Fall 2022 Velocity $5K winners from the Conrad School!
AFAIK maps academic knowledge for self-learners, and is co-founded by Orianna Min, a mechanical engineering student who has completed two E Co-op terms.
Landscape Direct is a fully online garden centre that connects our customers directly to top Canadian growers, co-founded by Blake Patterson, an Accounting and Financial Management student who completed an E Co-op term earlier this year.
Hear from Blake Patterson and the other pitch competition winners on their Velocity $5K experience.
Among the eight finalists was Penspyre, co-founded by Roman Semin (systems design engineering, former BETS student), which helps you never get stuck while writing through contextualized writing prompts.
Several Conrad School students were also featured as semifinalists:
- Coastal Carbon, launching the world’s first remote data platform for blue carbon, co-founded by Kelly Zheng (MBET '25, Ph.D. Fellowship recipient, former E Co-op)
- Werkspat, a subscription based, on-demand co-working platform that connects entrepreneurs, workers and freelancers with hot desks across a network of hospitality locations, co-founded by Ndubuaku Chijioke-Ugwu (MBET '23)
- MedInclude, a platform that aims to help patients better understand medical information, founded by Seun Adetunji (MBET '23)
- ShootFree, an auto-rotating device that mounts to the phone that provides a hands-free solution for athletes to capture footage of their games, founded by Young-vin Cho (E Co-op)
- Hexa, IDEAL, Pegasus and Quickast are all student teams who are currently taking BET 300, an undergraduate course offered by the Conrad School. BET 300 is an introduction to the processes involved in moving an idea from conception to launch, including foundational topics such as business plan frameworks, crafting value propositions and evaluating entrepreneurial opportunities.