The University of New Brunswick’s Master of Technology Management & Entrepreneurship program held its final pitching session Thursday night, allowing 10 teams comprising 13 students to present their companies to peers, mentors and local business leaders.
Every Thursday morning at the J. Herbert Smith Centre for Technology Management & Entrepreneurship, students have presented their ventures to a panel of entrepreneurs and coaches.
“These are not student projects -- they all have the potential to be significant businesses,” said Dhirendra Shukla, director of the J. Herbert Smith Centre. “That’s a really indicative marker of the quality of the program and people attracted to it.”
Shukla added the TME pitching event will be July 21 with 17 new startups being launched from the Masters in Technology Management & Entrepreneurship program, the Energia accelerator and UNB’s Summer Institute.
Over the past year, students in the program have gone through the process of launching a startup, either individually or in groups of up to three people.
“Our role is to provide guidance on how to validate their idea, not to judge their idea,” said Program Manager Phil Lambert. “Mentors encourage students to get outside of the building and meet with their target market to establish if they have a viable idea.”
The presenting companies last Thursday were:
Hinge Paintball (Joshua White, Stephenville, NL) -- White has developed a stock system that will allow players to drastically shorten the overall length of the paintball marker on the fly. The Fredericton-based venture has hopes of licensing the design to major paintball manufactures for the innovation to be included in future marker designs and even retrofit onto current units.
Blütek (Sébastien Haché, Shippagan, NB) – Blütek is focused on developing original ways to add value to wild blueberries prior to export. It specializes in wild blueberry extraction for anthocyanins.
ServeUs App (Vikram Devaguptapu, Visakhapatnam, India) –Devaguptapu is creating an app that will help caregivers for the elderly by connecting family caregivers with the information and resources they need. The mobile application is a collection of information and resources organizations in one place, accessible anywhere with the use of data.
Pfera Inc. (Lisa Pfister, London, Ont./Rusagonis, NB) – After breeding horses for several years, Pfister developed a milk analysis system able to predict when a mare will foal as well as an electronic health record for horses. The patent-pending milk analysis system predicts birth accurately within hours whereas she says competitors’ predictions are off by days and produce false alarms.
Read about Pfera Winning $375K in the Breakthru Competition.
Sm-Heart (Thomas Bird, Fredericton) – Bird describes Sm-Heart as “A fitbit for your heart.” After losing his grandfather to heart disease at a young age, Bird grew passionate about finding a way to minimize the effects of the disease. He has designed an anklet which monitors edema in those suffering from heart disease. For the next four months, Bird will be in Geneva, Switzerland, as a finalist in the MassChallenge accelerator program.
Stash Energy (Daniel Larsen, Belfast, PEI, Erik Hatfield, Rothesay, NB, and Jordan Kennie, Fredericton) -- PEI is having trouble meeting energy demand as residents switched from oil-burning heat sources to electric heat pumps, so the island is building a $70 million diesel power plant. The three were convinced that they could use existing heat pump systems to store energy during periods of low demand and then make that energy available during peak hours.
Rabbit Town Whisky Co. (Stewart Hillhouse, Toronto, Ont.) – Hillhouse is developing a process to diminish the time whisky spends maturing in barrels. Rabbit Town is bringing traditional ingredients and modern processes together to accelerate the aging process.”
PHYS Technologies (Casey Glenen, Riverview, NB) – PHYS has created a device which measures power output while training in the gym. PHYS Technologies is currently undergoing a three-month long pilot period. PHYS Technologies was started last year by Luke Dillman, a former TME student who is now studying at Dalhousie University. He was unable to continue with PHYS, so Glenen is helping him out.
Mbissa Energy Systems (Caleb Grove, Fredericton, NB) – A Canadian who grew up in Central Africa, Grove wanted to find a way to bring electricity to his neighbours. Grove has integrated modern equipment with local culture and ideas. His system works by having a central hub in a communal area, like a general store. The store hosts a large battery, charged by wind and solar sources, from which people can charge smaller batteries to take home for individual use.
Terra Toran (Kris Bowman, Rexton, NB, and Jonathan Kummer, Little Shemogue, NB) – Terra Toran is a video streaming service package that will allow environmental organizations and other groups to set up live feeds in remote locations. Despite the number of cameras in the modern landscape, set up, maintenance, and curation of video streams is still a major undertaking for many groups. Bowman and Kummer want to take that barrier away.
