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The Western Medical Innovation Fellows continue their winning streak having won the Best of Show prize at the 2021 Walleye Tank pitch competition. Walleye Tank is Minnesota’s life science pitch competition providing an educational and promotional opportunity for emerging medical and life science companies. 

The fellows participated in the Junior Anglers division, which is for entrepreneurs in the early stages of business development. Participants in this division have typically not incorporated their company yet or completed their minimum viable product (MVP). They competed against five other teams.

Cambridge Brain Sciences now a leading provider of web-based cognitive function assessments

Adrian Owen never used to think about commercializing his electronic cognitive assessments, which he would share widely with fellow researchers upon request.

Before the Internet, he would ship the tests on floppy disks to researchers around the globe who wanted accurate, quantified and scientifically validated measures of cognition.

Now, the software based assessments that originated from Owen’s graduate school research projects in Britain, and developed through his work as a professor, have grown into a Canadian tech company that employs dozens of software developers, business development representatives and account managers.

Now more than ever countries are working hard to balance economic growth with sustainability and meeting environmental standards needed to combat the devastating effects of climate change. Public institutions like universities and research organizations have an important role to play through their portfolios of licensable green technologies.

By commercializing technological innovation, countries can help generate sustainable economic growth while soundly addressing climate change. Demand for green technologies has increased remarkably in recent decades.

Another exciting year for the Proteus Innovation Competition has come and gone as we added new partner institutions and awarded over $25,000 in prizes to five teams.

Operating for the first time in a virtual environment, the competition saw its best year yet – receiving quality submissions from 57 student teams comprised of 191 individuals, some from all over Ontario, Alberta and even an international team from China. Teams overcame the challenges brought on by the pandemic and competed by creating abstracts and business plans, then making pitches to a panel of judges.

Fifty-seven teams comprising more than 190 individuals vied for the five top prizes at this year’s Proteus Innovation Competition – more than any other year in the contest’s six-year history.

Teams overcame the challenges brought on by the pandemic and competed virtually, creating abstracts and business plans, then making pitches to a panel of judges.

Founded at Western by WORLDiscoveries and grown to collaborate with McMaster, Windsor, Waterloo, Guelph and Wilfrid Laurier universities, the competition brings students together to propose viable paths to market for novel technologies developed at the partner institutions.

Hamilton’s life science ecosystem gathered virtually on March 24, for Innovation Factory’s eighth annual Synapse Competition, Ontario’s premier life science pitch competition. Synapse is designed to help move innovative life science products and services out of the lab and into the market, by pairing up life science Innovators with business and entrepreneurship students.

Since the inaugural Synapse Life Science Pitch Competition in 2014, Innovation Factory has worked with more than 90 companies and awarded over $500,000 in cash and in-kind resources though the support of its sponsors.

Adding to a growing list of business competition wins (See: 1 and 2) the Western Medical Innovation Fellows (MIF) scored another in the Stu Clark New Venture Championships: Graduate Edition. The team took first place in the elevator pitch portion of the annual competition hosted by the Stu Clark Centre for Entrepreneurship at the University of Manitoba.

The international competition is for graduate students to gain real experience while developing and growing new ventures based on the student created, managed or owned ventures. It involved a business plan portion, which requires submitting a comprehensive business plan, delivering a 15-minute presentation followed by a question and answer – and judge feedback session. The teams then must deliver a strict one-minute elevator pitch with no visual aids, cue cards or props allowed to a panel of judges.

Michael Lavdas, MESc’20 and member of the current cohort of Western Medical Innovation Fellows along with Mayo Clinic medical student David Soriano scored second prize in a two-day Innovation Sprint. The sprint was designed to encourage collaborative innovation at Mayo Clinic and engaged experts in information technology, clinical practice and business users to form cross-disciplinary teams. The teams then had to identify a problem, develop solutions and then sell it in a pitch all within the course of a weekend. The theme of the sprint was advanced healthcare at home.