It was an action packed afternoon as fifteen Capstone Design team finalists pitched their projects to win over $60,000 in awards!
On April 4, Waterloo Engineering hosted the first annual Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Awards for Capstone Design, culminating two weeks of extraordinary student innovation at the 2014 Capstone Design Symposia.
Host Matt Stevens, CEO of Cross Chasm, kept the pace moving and the audience cheering, as a panel of judges hammered 15 finalists with questions on sales, marketing, data security and product development.
Team members had 30 seconds to answer each question following exactly 90 seconds on stage to make a compelling business case for $10,000 in funding. What was their pricing model? Did they consider their product to be evolutionary, disruptive or transformative? Were they ready to go to market? How much capital did they need to get there?
Following a brief jury deliberation, six outstanding teams were awarded $10,000 each.
The winners of the 2014 Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Awards for Capstone Design are: Flood Defender, Grayscale, Majik Systems, MixBox, OntheGo, and Wearability! Congratulations to our student entrepreneurs!
Trustees of the Esch Foundation were on hand to present the awards, which support creative and entrepreneurial students in the pursuit of research and development and its commercialization for the benefit of Canada.
Former Dean of Engineering Adel Sedra was also on hand to present the Sedra People’s Choice Award. Named in his honour, the award of $3,000 was presented for the best Capstone Design Project as voted by the audience. It was a close vote and by a margin of one, the award went to Wearability, a double winner!
Event Partners
The Esch Foundation Conrad Centre for Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology
About The Esch Foundation and Norman Esch
The Esch Foundation was established in November 2004 by Norman Esch to support the development of students receiving training in the interdisciplinary applications of engineering sciences. After serving with the navy during the Second World War, Esch became involved with lithography. In 1950, he invested his total savings of $5,000 and started his own company. The founder of Graphic Litho-Plate, the owner of Roto-tone Gravure and many other related companies, he was a highly-regarded business leader and a driving force behind the printing industry in Toronto. Esch died on August 25, 2010 at Sunnybrook Hospital at the age of 92.
