It was an action packed afternoon as 15 Capstone Design team finalists pitched their projects to win over $60,000 in awards!
On April 4, Waterloo Engineering hosted the first annual Esch Entrepreneurship Capstone Design Awards, culminating two weeks of extraordinary student innovation at the 2014 Capstone Design Symposia.
View gallery of Esch Entrepreneurship and Sedra People's Choice Awards
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 Coatings, MAJiK Systems, MIXBOX, On-The-Go 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 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 very close. By a margin of one, the award went to Wearability, a double winner!
The 2014 Esch Entrepreneurship Award Winners
Flood Defender
An automated system to reduce the rate and intensity of water damage in apartment buildings.
Program: Mechanical Engineering
Team Members: Scott Duncan, Jarret Cauchy, David Lee
Faculty Advisor: Steve Waslander
MAJiK Systems
A white label CRM that builds in real-time machine monitoring software for factories and machine manufacturers.
Program: Management Engineering
Team Members: Kamal Aman, Jared Evans, Mike Tatham, Adam Singer
Faculty Advisor: Stan Dimitrov
On-The-Go
An easy to use mobile app that records and splits expenses between users while travelling.
Program: Management Engineering
Team Members: Nick Ghotbi, Nasif Addnan, Riley McLeod
Faculty Advisor: Mark Hancock
MIXBOX
An iPad app that allows users to create new music from existing music with minimal skill or effort.
Program: Software Engineering
Team Members: Peter Sobot, Ryan Bateman, Chris Taylor, Wen-Hao Lue
Faculty Advisor: Patrick Lam
Grayscale Coatings
An innovative reflective roof coating that will cool in warm months and heat in cool months.
Program: Nanotechnology Engineering
Team Members: Farzana Yusufali, Roy Lee, Ioana Craiciu, Lindsay Brock
Faculty Advisor: Jean Duhamel
Wearability
An electromyography (EMG) shirt that measures electrical activity in muscles during gym workouts
Program: Systems Design Engineering
Team Members: Marc-Andre Simard, Pratik Konnur, Adam Thagard, Chris Menezes
Faculty Advisor: Daniel Stashuk
