The surge in submissions to Innovacorp’s I-3 competition has been quite remarkable, especially in rural areas.

The innovation agency announced this week that it received 228 submissions for the 2013-2014 startup contest – an increase of more than 60 percent for the last time the biennial competition was held. Sixty percent is astonishing. The number of entries rose 9 percent four years ago, and 7 percent two years ago. Now there is a sudden surge in nascent companies.

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.

The number of submissions is no indication of the quality of the finalists. But it does indicate the enthusiasm created by the contest. Breakthru really harnessed the vivacity of university entrepreneurs, and I-3 is doing the same thing.

Last Thursday, I visited the new sandbox facility at Dalhousie, and a team of students was busily putting the finishing touches on its submission. Two days later, I was with the Masters of Technology , Entrepreneurship and Innovation program at St. Mary’s, and a few of its students had entered.

Between Breakthru and I-3 in the past year there have been 275 teams come forward. We’re already seeing that some of the Breakthru teams are persevering and growing into bona fide companies. No doubt the same thing will happen with the I-3 contestants.

As expected, almost half the entries are from the greater Halifax area, which accounted for 110 entries, up 60 per cent from two years ago. The number of submissions in Cape Breton (which includes the underappreciated tech hub around Sydney) was stable at 28.

In the other regions, the South Shore was unusually weak two years ago, but its submissions have almost tripled to 22. The submissions almost doubled in the Annapolis Valley and rose 44 percent in Northern Nova Scotia. In total, most of the growth has been on mainland Nova Scotia outside Halifax.

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