Teams featuring members from Waterloo Engineering swept all four $5,000 prizes at the recent Concept 5K pitch competition for aspiring student entrepreneurs.
Winners at the Winter 2022 event, whittled down from 22 competitors at the outset, were Cauchy Analytics, Moonlight Haptics, Retinex and Tulay.
Cauchy, which includes chemical engineering PhD student James Lowman, is developing a non-invasive, continuous monitoring system for cardiac hemodynamics in hospital intensive care units.
Moonlight, comprised of fourth-year nanotechnology engineering classmates Alex Wei, Yahia Nassab, Reese Martens and William Losin, is working on a wearable haptic device that mimics vision through the sense of touch for people with visual impairment.
Retinex, which includes PhD students Lucas Botelho and Richard Van Blitterswijk from mechanical and mechatronics engineering, is pursuing a system for monitoring and controlling high-temperature manufacturing processes such as metal 3D printing and welding.
Tulay, featuring engineering master’s student Alyssa Mariano, is a virtual insurance brokerage to help international students in Canada understand and find the coverage they need.
Four other teams with engineering members – Aura-Air (Thomas Storwick, chemical engineering), Elpis (Daniel Hu and Orianna Min, mechanical engineering), Formify (Gianpaolo Pittis, mechanical engineering) and Herma Print (Justin Cheng, mechanical engineering) also qualified for the eight-team finals.
Concept is an experiential entrepreneurship and pre-incubator program at the University of Waterloo. It is provided by Velocity, an incubator for early stage, pre-send startup companies.
Video pitches by the winning teams can be found on YouTube by going to Winter 2022: $5k Pitch Winners.