For a team that squeaked into the competition, Afri-Sea from Saint Mary’s University exceeded expectations at the International Business Model Competition on the weekend.
The company, which uses compounds from seaweed to mitigate the effects of drought, made the finals at the event at Brigham Young University in Utah, ending up placing fifth and winning US$5,000.
Not a bad performance, when you consider the team from the Halifax university’s Master of Technology Entrepreneurship and Innovation program missed the finals of the Canadian competition held at Dalhousie University in March.
The story of this team began last autumn when Tim Cranston, Sulayman Cham and Todd Mercer entered the 16-month graduate program that teaches lean entrepreneurship. (Disclaimer: The program advertises on Entrevestor.)
Cranston had already co-founded a marine biotech company, Natural Ocean Products, which won the biotech category at the I-3 startup competition in Nova Scotia last year.
He learned from Cham of the devastating drought in Gambia, and the team was formed to find a solution using bioactive compounds Cranston had worked with in his studies as a marine biologist.
They understood that seaweed can retain 200 to 300 times its weight in moisture so they began to investigate using coastal sea plants as an additive to retain moisture in soil.
They developed it into a business model, and Progress Magazine reported that the proposal has been endorsed by Gambia’s government and is being reviewed by the World Bank.
In March, Afri-Sea entered Canada's Business Model Competition at Dal, which is a qualifying round for the event in Utah. The competitions, which assess university students’ proficiency in developing a business using the lean startup methodology, are held in 15 countries. All 3,832 teams that competed this year were trying to qualify for the finals in Utah.
The competition at the event in Halifax was strong, and Afri-Sea was knocked out before the Canadian finals.
“Because we felt that the … team was a great team, Tim pursued getting into the (international) competition through the at-large international competition route,” said Dawn Jutla, head of the program.
“He had a video created, submitted and they were on their way.”
Afri-Sea competed with 41 other university teams in Utah and drew strong praise from participants and judges. Big Idea Wisconsin, a startup organization attending the event, sent out a tweet Saturday that summed up the reaction: “Afrisea … mind blowing … seaweed as a solution to drought in Africa and around the world. #IBMC2015”
The judges were especially complimentary, saying Afri-Sea was a “world-class” company and used the complete business canvas well.
The overall winner of the competition was Emilia Diaz and her Chilean company Kaitek Labs, which developed biosensors to identify water and seafood poisoned by red tide toxins. She was the first female founder and first competitor from outside the United States to win.
