The Winners of the Spring 2020 Quantum Valley Investments® Problem Pitch competition

Once more the Problem Lab is pleased to announce the winners of the Quantum Valley Investments® Problem Pitch!

This semester, finalists had the unique challenge of not only building their amazing pitches but doing so remotely and separate from their teammates. The finalists all demonstrated a thorough understanding of important commercial problems affecting a wide set of stakeholders and industry – from engineered foods to fashion and personal protective equipment (PPE). All of the final pitches are availablee on YouTube.

Congratulations to the winners and all the finalists in this term’s Problem Pitch competition.

Two winning teams each walked away with $7,500 in R&D funding to finance the development of a solution to the problems they presented. The teams had 5-minutes to pitch their problem to a panel of judges and recorded their pitches for virtual audiences. The winners were able to demonstrate that their chosen problems are of significant scale and they had the most thorough analysis of the problem.

Quantum Valley Investments® Problem Pitch winners

Billion Dollar Problems Stream

C-Debris (formerly UV & Debris): Ethan Lee (1B, Engineering), Priyanka Surendra (1B, Engineering) & Seth Lauzon (3A, Engineering) 

C-Debris pitched the problem of the acceleration of space debris density in the Low-Earth Orbit is affecting spacecraft missions, which affects spacecraft missions, results in the loss of expensive equipment, high repair costs, and disrupts of communications.

Open Problems Stream

Citrus: Kiran Edwardson (3A, Engineering), Liam Croteau (3A, Engineering)

Citrus pitched the problem of current testing methods for diagnosing Lyme Disease, a disease with the potential to cause chronically debilitating condition.

All finalists presented important and well-researched problems. The Problem Lab commends each of the teams for the time and hard work they put in during the competition process.

Judges at this semester’s event included Alim Somani, Managing Director of Hatch Digital, Mike McCauley, Co-founder and General Partner at Garage Capital, and Peggy Jarvie, previously the Associate Provost of Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE) at UWaterloo.

The Quantum Valley Investments® Problem Pitch Competition is made possible by $300,000 in funding from Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin, principals of Quantum Valley Investments® and founders of Blackberry.