Robert Niven looked around the packed room at the Innovacorp Enterprise Centre on Friday and said it once again: “I love this event.”

The CEO of Halifax-based CarbonCure Technologies has good reason to love Innovacorp’s I-3 competition, whose launch we were attending.  His was a true startup (then known as CarbonSense Solutions) when he entered the competition in 2009, yet the company placed second in the Halifax area, behind the eventual provincial winner, Tether. Since then, CarbonCure has grown steadily, finding national and international markets for its sustainable method of making concrete blocks.

Niven and a hundred or so other startup enthusiasts gathered on Friday for the Halifax launch of the 2013-14 version of the biennial competition, which is being held for the fourth time. Like the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation’s Breakthru competition, the aim is to thrash the bushes across the province and encourage budding entrepreneurs to step forward and use the competition process to improve their business plan. And the contestants have a chance to win as much as $225,000 in cash and services.

In launching the competition, Innovacorp CEO Stephen Duff said the good news the province has a strong tradition of entrepreneurship. “The verdict is in and entrepreneurship does abound in Nova Scotia,” he said. “We have a very rich community here.”

Innovacorp started the I-3 competition in Cape Breton in 2005-6 with the aim of pioneering a competition that would encourage people to start businesses. Mabou-based Halifax Biomedical won the Cape Breton competition, which Innovacorp repeated two years later as a province-wide event.

Since it began, I-3 has attracted 417 submissions, with the numbers increasing with each event. In the last outing, I-3 received 142 submissions.

The competition divides the province into five zones, and awards $100,000 in cash and services to winners in five regions across the province, and then another $100,000 to the provincial winner. It also awards $25,000 to winners in each of four sectors – information technology, life sciences, clean technology and life sciences.

Entrants must submit their application by Oct. 18, after which there are a series of pitching and mentoring events.

There are two sublime elements of these provincial contests. First, they attract people who have been humming and hawing about an idea, and entice such people to get something down on paper and begin the process of forming a company. Second, the contest process is a learning experience in itself, and the feedback helps entrepreneurs hone their businesses as they proceed. 

 “Just pitching your business and getting feedback, we found, was incredibly helpful,” said Chris McMaster, the President of DeNovaMed, which won the competition in 2011-12 for its development of a new antibiotic to fight superbugs.

The other hallmark of the competition is its focus on five zones means that only one-fifth of the finalists are from Halifax, so it’s a chance to witness new ventures from rural Nova Scotia and the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.

Though the winning companies have received the headlines and plaudits at the time of the competition, Niven’s CarbonCure is only one of the non-winners that have gone on to bigger and better things.  I-3 alumni that have grown over the years include Marcato Digital Solutions, Billdidit and GoVenture World Inc., all of the Sydney area, Skillz Systems of Halifax and znanja of New Glasgow. 

Duff said the organizers want to see which zones have the highest number of entries on a per capita basis.

Two years ago, Innovacorp ran its CleanTech Open competition at the same time as I-3. Thomas Rankin, who oversaw the cleantech event, said Friday the agency may hold another CleanTech Open in the future but holding the two events simultaneously taxed its resources.

Innovacorp will announce the winners and the runners-up in each of the four zones on January 27. And it will reveal the four sector winners and the overall winner on February 12.