Quantum Valley Investments® Problem Pitch Frequently Asked Questions

The Problem Lab presents the Quantum Valley Investments® Problem Pitch. The competition invites teams of up to four students to choose an important industry problem and thoroughly research its history, scope, and impact. Students prepare an analysis of their findings for a panel of judges who determine the competition winner.

Funding from the Quantum Valley Investments® Problem Pitch is used by the teams to reimburse their research and development (R&D) expenditures. After the competition, those eligible for funding are provided with a reimbursement guide and overview of the existing process in place for expense claims. Teams are always encouraged to notify Problem Lab of the R&D purchases they intended to make to ensure they are eligible. 

Those student teams with access to Problem Pitch funding are given 1 year to spend the funds they have been awarded. Winners have the opportunity extend this deadline by completing and submitting a proposal template created by the Problem Lab.

There are existing processes within UWaterloo for submitting expense claims and invoices, and teams are provided with an overview of these processes after each Problem Pitch finals. Teams should contact the Problem Lab to notify them of the R&D purchases they wish to make or risk being denied reimbursement if their purchases are deemed ineligible. Once submitted to Finance, expense claims are paid at the end of each month, in accordance with UWaterloo’s existing payment/payroll schedule. In order to ensure expense claims are paid in a timely manner they must be submitted prior to the pay date submission cut-offs provided by UWaterloo Human Resources.

The competition will culminate in a problem analysis submission. The problem analysis document created by Finalists will be provided to a panel of qualified, industry experienced judges. Judges will be provided with scoring criteria to determine which team has the best understanding of their chosen problem.

You can always book a 1:1 meeting with Problem Lab staff to discuss your problem. 

Generally, important problems are:

Repeatedly and urgently discussed

Systemic, affecting many different outcomes

Long-standing

Mission-critical

If your problem meets most or all of these criteria, then it is likely an important problem. Our methods can further help you to identify important problems.

The UWaterloo Library has a number of research databases to help you research your chosen problem in their guide for Entrepreneurship & Innovation.

UWaterloo's Engineering & Entrepreneurship Librarian has created a research guide specifically for students in the Problem Pitch.

You can apply using the online form on the Quantum Valley Investments® Problem Pitch page.

To apply, we ask that you choose a problem and complete an initial problem analysis, filling in each section. You may find it helpful to review our methodology as you complete the application.

Connect with a Problem Lab staff before the application deadline if you have any questions or just want to discuss your problem in depth.

Though we cannot provide you the scoring rubric, we strongly suggest that you strive to answer the the relevant questions on our methodology page in each section of your application.

Teams are expected to provide a list of their references at all stages of the competition. Our reviewers will make attempts to verify information provided within Problem Pitch applications. 

References only require the following four pieces of information: author, date, title of article and title of the publisher; for example, Day, M. (6 June 2019). Amazon's Satellite Project Will Cost Billions, Jeff Bezos Says. Bloomberg.

Market reports are invaluable for uncovering the scale of industries and companies. The UWaterloo Library pays for access to three major market report companies, IBISWorld, MarketLine and Frost & Sullivan. Visit the UWaterloo Library website to access these databases and search for the companies and industries affected by your chosen problem.

Context is about explaining the necessary information surrounding your problem as it relates to the present time. To make make sure you are capturing the different perspectives, start by using a PESTEL analysis. 

While it is possible to have identified a newer problem that does not have a long history, it is likely there are parallels between your identified problem and another problem. For example, the history of marijuana legalization is brief, but the history of alcohol legalization goes back much further. There are parallels that can be drawn between these two substances, like policy decisions, enforcement of intoxication laws, and the detection of intoxication levels.

You are not likely to find documentation that outlines all the ways an attempted solution failed. This is where your detailed knowledge of the problem helps you explain why a solution failed.

Given what you know about the chosen problem, what are the attempted solutions not addressing or taking into account? For example, if you know water treatment solutions are focusing on treating pathogens and the amount of inorganic materials that reaches our water sources is increasing, makers of these solutions may be mistaken about the rising amounts of different contaminants.

When researching past solutions and why they failed to fully solve the identified problem, think about the incentive mechanisms that are inherent or produced by the solutions. For example, do increasingly complex password requirements incentivize users to use a small number of repeated passwords for all their logins?