This winter term, Enterprise Co-op students pitched for prizes of $5,000 at the Ignition Week pitch competition. Each competing student had five minutes to pitch their venture to a panel of judges, followed by a three-minute question period. Meet the winter 2020 pitch winners!
E-Launch Awards
The E-Launch Awards are awarded to the winners of a pitch competition among non-engineering students in the E Co-op program. Up to five scholarships of $5,000 are awarded each term.
Robert Rehill, Volar
Environment
Volar is an e-commerce startup that sells a line of products on the amazon.com platform. They use specialized techniques to launch their products to the top of search results. Volar donates a portion of revenue to help fund global charitable organizations. Volar plans to expand sales on the Shopify platform, as well as other amazon platforms including amazon.ca.
Arman Naziri, Captain's Quarters Games
Science
Captain's Quarters Games is a game development studio whose aim is to fully create, design, and sell a single, independently created fantasy tabletop role playing game. The game will aim to cater toward tabletop role players looking for a unique, cinematic tabletop experience which allows for individual groups to custom tailor their experience toward their own artistic/writing whims.
Norman Esch Enterprise Co-op Awards
The Norman Esch Enterprise Co-op Awards are available to students in Engineering. These are the winners for this term:
Iris Redinger, Material Futures Lab.
Engineering
Material Futures Lab sustainably produces pigments to better understand colour that is produced by the natural world. Material Futures Lab has a focus on replacing methods of synthetic chemistry with green chemistry and synthetic biology. The applications of these pigments include cosmetics and natural colorants, but Material Futures Lab is currently targeting the textile dyestuff industry.
Joshua D'Souza, Cloud Safari
Engineering
Cloud Safari is an online platform where travelers can create their custom travel adventures to Tanzania and book with qualified local operators. At Cloud Safari, the traveler can view and select packages they want for their adventure. Then, they take the selected packages and automatically create a complete day-by-day itinerary which includes food, transportation, accommodation, etc. So that their traveler has everything they need from the time they arrive to the time they leave.
Adil Dharshi, WeRides Inc.
Engineering
WeRides Inc. specializes in providing the most efficient and convenient stress-free delivery service for auto-transport. WeRides Inc. provides services to logistics service providers (LSP), retailers, manufacturers and wholesalers. Their vision is to make auto-transportation an easy process for consumers, thereby being the number one preferred vehicle-transportation and logistics service provider in Canada. To do this, WeRides, provides three main options for vehicle shipping including door to door service, WeLocation to WeLocation and WeLocation to door. These options provide convenient, flexible and personalized services for each member.
Sam Dugan, Vision Spatial Technologies
Engineering
Vision Spatial Technologies Inc. (VSTech) is using computer vision to make the world a safer place to play. The first service that VSTech has created is the SmartPatrol, a unique solution to reduce injuries in ski resorts. This service revolves around a computer vision powered unit that is placed on ski resort terrain park jumps. SmartPatrol performs real time monitoring of landing areas, looking for hazards such as fallen skiers, riders, machinery, terrain park staff, lost equipment etc. The unit then notifies uphill skiers whether the zone is clear, directly reducing the number of accidents and injuries that occur in the terrain park.