We’ve been getting requests to remind the startup community that deadlines are approaching for some high profile competitions, and people should get their names in. With luck, they’ll be as successful as Mindful Scientific has been in a recent national competition in the U.S.

The deadline for Innovacorp’s I-3 competition in Nova Scotia is Friday, Oct. 18, and the provincial agency wants entrepreneurs, whether they have a successful business or just a good idea, to enter. “People can enter with an idea, prototype or even be in business with cumulative sales to date of less than $3 million,” said organizer Shelley Hessian.

Meanwhile, Chris Dobbin, the CEO of Precipice Capital in Dartmouth, is encouraging more Atlantic Canadian digital media and IT companies to apply for the CIX Top 20 – a national competition whose deadline is this Friday. “We’re looking for a bunch more Atlantic companies,” said Dobbin, who helping out with the event, organized annually by the Toronto-based Canadian Innovation Exchange.

The CIX Top 20 is open to any Canadian company working in digital media or information and communication technology with annual revenues under $10 million.  Past finalists from the region include ClearRisk and Celtx of St. John’s and Livelenz of Bedford, N.S.

Atlantic Canadian companies are having surprising success in national and international competitions.

For example, Mindful Scientific, the Halifax-based startup whose device can assess brain trauma in real time in any location, has just won one of four national prizes at the Retis YEi competition in the US. 

“We competed with companies across the U.S. and won one of the national prizes,” said CEO Ying Tam yesterday, adding the prize includes a one-week business camp in France.  “This win certainly validates what we are doing from a product and market perspective, but has the potential to jumpstart us with specific targeted prospects in France and with the EU regulatory process."