McMaster students excel at regional innovation fair

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BY Faculty of Engineering

October 17, 2007

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Innovation_Fair.jpg” caption=”Pictured are some of the McMaster XCEEi students who participated in the first annual TECNet Smart Start Innovation Fair: Karim Alshurafa (seated), Peeter Neilander (back row, left to right), Alena Morozova, Rafik Loutfy, director of XCEEi, Aizhan Tursunbayeva, Kareem El-Khodiry, Lara Ghaddar and Mehrdad Bahreini. Not pictured: Jesika Briones, Alqadir Dhalla, Cristian Nunez, Timothy Pryor, Luis Quiroz and Pankaj Sood. Photo courtesy of Faculty of Engineering.”]Five McMaster engineering entrepreneurship master's students walked away with $5,000 each last week thanks to their talent for pitching business start-ups.

Their efforts were part of the inaugural TECNet Smart Start Innovation Fair held on Oct. 9 at the Waterloo Accelerator Centre.

The innovation fair challenged students enrolled in the engineering entrepreneurship programs at McMaster University and the University of Waterloo to make two-minute business pitches to a panel of well-known venture capitalists and investors. The five best pitches from each university each received $5,000 to pursue development of their business ideas.

Twelve projects from McMaster's Xerox Centre for Engineering Entrepreneurship and Innovation (XCEEi) and 14 projects from Waterloo's Centre for Business Entrepreneurship and Technology (CBET) were entered.

The three highest-ranked business pitches, with a tie for first, were:

  • The Other Way: a wood-working company out of the CBET program that makes customized, decorative and personalized ornamental wood furniture components. It is run by Waterloo student Melanie Blass and Dr. Sanjeev Bedi, a professor of mechanical and mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo.
  • Winovi: a wireless platform out of the XCEEi program to deliver filtered, summarized, peer-reviewed, relevant, evidence-based medical knowledge to health care professionals on their wireless devices, saving them from having to read thousands of journals. It is run by McMaster students Alena Morozova and Aizhan Tursunbayeva with technology from Dr. Brian Haynes, a professor of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University.
  • Hospital Inventory Tracking and Management using RFID Technology: a services-related initiative out of the XCEEi program enabling healthcare facilities to track their equipment and devices in real-time to better manage theft and loss. It is run by Pankaj Sood, a graduate of the XCEEi program.

    Other examples of projects submitted include devices that help the blind to better understand objects in their environment, a real-time method for delivering theraputics to the eye, better methods of recycling rubber tires, a portable bridge for disaster relief operations and a method of manufacturing flexible solar cells with efficiencies equal to that of current rigid cells.

    Next year, a TECNet Smart Start Business Plan Competition will be added. It will feature entrants from this year's Innovation Fair showcasing the progress they made on developing the ventures they pitched. The Innovation Fair will also be held again with a new batch of entrepreneurs pitching the ideas of professors and inventors. McMaster University will host the 2008 competitions.

    The TECNet Smart Start Innovation Fair was funded by the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. Sponsors included the Hamilton office of Gowlings, a leading Canadian law firm with a specialized intellectual property practice, and the Toronto branch of The Indus Entrepreneurs Association, the world's largest non-profit organization for entrepreneurs.

    TECNet is a joint initiative between McMaster's Xerox Centre for Engineering Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the University of Waterloos Centre for Business Entrepreneurship and Technology. It was established to fuel entrepreneurship and innovation and build networks of entrepreneurs in Ontario. Funding is provided by the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation.