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

This term's finalists demonstrated a deep understanding of important commercial problems affecting multiple industries – from cybersecurity insurance to plastic waste management.

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 an audience of students and professionals. After each pitch, the panel of judges had 5-minutes of Q&A where they dug deeper into the problem and how well each team understood their problem. 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

Olnaire: Athulya Nambiar (1B, Nanotechnology) pitched in the category of non-lethal weapons, highlighting that there is no effective tool for women in India to protect themselves against sexual violence.

Open Problems Stream

Scope: Holden Beggs (4B, Nanotechnology) pitched the problem of smartphone cameras' inability to optically zoom.

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 Michael Litt, Co-Founder and CEO of Vidyard, Margaret Dalziel, Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo, and Eric Blondeel, Co-Founder and CEO of Jelponics.

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.