Environment 1 (EV1), room 347
519-888-4567, ext. 33463
On November 13th, 2019, eleven teams competed for the Jack Rosen memorial pitch competition. Jack Rosen was an entrepreneur and recycling pioneer. In his honor,the Rosen family contributes to the growth of Entrepreneurship in the faculty of environment for the competition to find solutions to mitigate environmental problems.
Entrepreneurship at Environment ( E @ E ), GreenHouse and the Environment Advancement office worked hand in hand to go through applications, host practice pitch sessions and organize the competition.
Guest Judges: Sarah Walker- Co-Founder of Boosh All Natural Lipsticks Rainer Mueller- Principal at Mount Seven Group and CEO of William's Fresh Cafe Tania Del Matto- Director of St.Paul's GreenHouse
EmpowerEQ- Electricity Generating Water Barrel: Energy Quencher energy insecure areas namely, Malawi Guy Brodsky
The eleven teams pitched their solutions in 3 minutes and were asked pressing questions for another 3 minutes by the judges: Rainer Mueller, Tania Del Matto, and Sarah Walker.
The winners of the Grand Prize of $3000 was team TRUM (Thermal Remote Unsupervised Monitoring) by Shahzad Lone and Jonas Hamberg. Their project showcased the use of thermal imaging data from NASA satellite images with algorithms to track and predict the growth of trees.
Team EmPowerEQ presented by Guy Brodsky secured second place. EmpowerEQ posed a solution that adresses energy insecurity in Malawi. Guy and his team made an “Energy Quencher” in the form of a water barrel which extracts kinetic energy and turns it into electricity used by Malawians to power their living.
Team SheCycle: Leah Wouda, Anna Keupfer, and Abby Loewen showcased their solution to poor menstrual health management in developing countries, namely Uganda. Their solution was the creation of their antimicrobial sanitary pads.
This year's competition posed solutions not only to the problems adressed above but also to food inecurity, sustainable fashion, sustainable food production and packaging, as well as clean energy.
The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land granted to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. Our active work toward reconciliation takes place across our campuses through research, learning, teaching, and community building, and is centralized within our Office of Indigenous Relations.