NEWSROOM
Velocity Innovation Challenge winners
More than $40,000 in prize money was given away at our Innovation Challenge last night, with some of New Zealand’s industry leaders in attendance.
The Velocity Innovation Challenge received more than 370 entries from staff and students across all eight faculties at the University of Auckland – the second highest number of entries since the competition began in 2003.
Entrants had the challenge of pitching their entrepreneurial ideas and an accompanying business proposal in no more than 1,000 words. This year’s entries covered issues as diverse as food and water shortages, eye sight, pedestrian security, Alzheimer’s and artist collaboration. This year’s winners will receive $1,000 each.
Entries were judged by a panel of more than 80 industry professionals, and all entrants have the opportunity to receive feedback from at least two experts in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
This year’s prize pool included awards for commercial and social innovation in addition to prizes for specific industries, faculties and departments. The increased size of our prize pool reflects the growing importance the University and the New Zealand business community is placing upon fostering entrepreneurship in universities. It is also solid proof of the reputation Velocity has built as one of the world’s most innovative world-class entrepreneurship development programmes.
Our keynote speaker was Jake Millar, a 20-year-old entrepreneur who has already turned heads by selling his first successful venture to the New Zealand Government.
Here’s a full list of our winners. Congratulations to all!
Commercial innovation winners
Unique Protection: Protecting our next sporting heroes’ teeth through fitted mouth guards.
TreatHolho: ‘Breaking the wall’ of dementia with early prevention of Alzheimer’s disease.
StudyCoach: An online platform that connects New Zealand high school students and helps them build great study habits.
School Insider: An online platform matching high school students to study options abroad.
Seismic improvement of URM chimneys: Provides an effective, cost-efficient solution to unreinforced masonry chimneys, which have been shown to collapse easily during earthquakes.
Halo: The venture aims to provide information about the person’s medical condition and history to rescuers when they are unable to do it themselves.
Cat-trax: This is an end-to-end cloud-based application to fully digitise all aspects of cataract surgery. It will create significant improvements in efficiency and vastly enhanced functionality over the current paper-based system.
Mobilise with mobile: Blood clot formation in the limbs is a life threatening condition and can be prevented by frequent mobilisation. Our device will help immobilised people achieve the effect of mobilisation.
BioBreathe: Developing a safe and effective inhalable antifungal therapy for pulmonary aspergillosis. An inhalable formulation of a novel antifungal compound will be tested in an animal model for safety and efficacy.
Cryo Strap: An innovative means of assisting with RICE recovery for recent joint strains and sprains anywhere, anytime.
Social innovation winners
Sentinel Lighting Systems: Improves pedestrian security and confidence through a transferable, cost effective source of illumination retrofitted to existing street poles, lighting up otherwise dark footpaths at night across New Zealand.
Kai Relations Network: Starship doesn’t provide meals for all parents, yet every single child hospitalised has at least one parent staying with them. This venture plans to change this by providing nourishment for Kiwi families in need.
Love Socks: Socks made from wool that would have otherwise gone to waste. For every pair sold, another will be gifted to a child seeking shelter at the Women’s Refuge.
The MTBL: A novel plastics biodegradation service which uses recent advances in environmental science to turn problem plastics into useable, plastic-free outputs.
Closing The Gap: Helps reduce workplace gender inequality through access to information on firm-by-firm inequality, a guide to negotiating raises and promotions, and leaderboards for equal-opportunity firms.
Intruder Watch: Aims to develop a non-invasive diagnostic test for a chronic, debilitating disease (endometriosis), which could alleviate the prolonged suffering and lost fertility for many reproductive age women.
Artists of Aotearoa: Provides publishing opportunities to musicians, writers and visual artists through a high-engagement online multimedia platform.
GreenLightGo: A mobile application that allows users to pre-program wellbeing prompts into their daily life.
Superscope: Aims to empower and nurture the next generation of innovators and ethical problem-solvers. Its core offering is a child-friendly magazine that discusses ongoing world issues in playful forms.
IntelVision: a diagnostic app for the early detection of dyslexia, autism and ADHD giving youth equal opportunity within their learning environment.
Special
Faculty of Engineering
The Water U Trust: Experience the power of sunlight in converting polluted water into your ultra-pure drinking water by applying zero waste technology.
Agritech
Black Soldier Fly processor: The conversion of organic waste into a source of agricultural protein, oil and frass through the use of an insect, Hermetia illucens (Black Soldier Fly, BSF).
Robot Bird Chaser in Orchards: The use of small mobile robots to scare birds and reduce crop damage.
Faculty of Arts
FoodClub: App that matches people with a glut of produce to those who have none. A solution to all of our feijoa problems.
Department of Computer Science
Upscalin: Aims to reduce textile waste by converting it into fashionable products.
App prize
Strutagio: Enables men to conveniently access fashionable tailored formal shoes from the comfort of their own home.
Faculty of Education and Social Work
Ology: A mobile and web app that uses research-supported study methods to change the way students study.
UniServices
Patch & Go: A smart electronic skin sensor that can simultaneously promote rapid healing of external wounds while sensing the temperature of your body.
Actigaze: What touch interaction is today, eye gaze interaction will be tomorrow. Actigaze allows you to interact with a device using only your eyes – with the speed of the mouse.
AvA: An adeno-associated viral vector gene therapy that promotes regeneration of neurons to form new functional connections in chronic cases of spinal cord injury.
Magno-PCR: Provides real time, cost effective and portable solutions for DNA based diagnostics of infectious diseases, genetic abnormalities and cancer.
Weaver: Integrating state-of-the-art computational design, advanced composite materials and 3D printing to provide unprecedented desktop manufacturing capabilities to the medical, aerospace and high-performance sporting market.
Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences
Low Vision Mobile App: An apparatus that aids low vision patients (a person who is not able to see even with conventional vision correction methods).
Faculty of Law
Next Generation Legals: New Zealand Non-for Profit organization to provide on-demand generic legal advice to the community online, with answers supplied by a partnership between lawyers and law students.
National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries
New Direction: A more convenient way of marketing.
Department of Property
The Stationary Bus: To provide the service in a modified bus of lending expensive and specialised stationery for those who need it but are unwilling to buy it.
Faculty of Science
Uber Transport: An Uber-like transport app that connects buyers to travellers who can transport large goods and are already travelling to the destination of the buyer.
Chiasma
Catacorrect: Removing cataracts causes a variety of issues which aren’t addressed by current lens implants. The Catacorrect intraocular lens aims to knock such lenses into obscurity with an original three-pronged approach.
Whiua Ki Te Ao!
SEFARA: Aims to join a global movement in supporting and integrating refugees into new cultures. It fills a gap in the New Zealand settlement system by connecting refugees and employers.
The Barnacle: A compact, comprehensive data-logger attachable to surfaces exposed to seawater that simultaneously provides value by collecting academic-standard scientific data and optimising services provided by the diving industry.
The winning teams of the Innovation Challenge celebrate.
The winning teams of the Innovation Challenge celebrate.
More than $40,000 in prize money was given away at our Innovation Challenge last night, with some of New Zealand’s industry leaders in attendance.
The Velocity Innovation Challenge received more than 370 entries from staff and students across all eight faculties at the University of Auckland – the second highest number of entries since the competition began in 2003.
Entrants had the challenge of pitching their entrepreneurial ideas and an accompanying business proposal in no more than 1,000 words. This year’s entries covered issues as diverse as food and water shortages, eye sight, pedestrian security, Alzheimer’s and artist collaboration. This year’s winners will receive $1,000 each.
Entries were judged by a panel of more than 80 industry professionals, and all entrants have the opportunity to receive feedback from at least two experts in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
This year’s prize pool included awards for commercial and social innovation in addition to prizes for specific industries, faculties and departments. The increased size of our prize pool reflects the growing importance the University and the New Zealand business community is placing upon fostering entrepreneurship in universities. It is also solid proof of the reputation Velocity has built as one of the world’s most innovative world-class entrepreneurship development programmes.
Our keynote speaker was Jake Millar, a 20-year-old entrepreneur who has already turned heads by selling his first successful venture to the New Zealand Government.
Here’s a full list of our winners. Congratulations to all!
Commercial innovation winners
Unique Protection: Protecting our next sporting heroes’ teeth through fitted mouth guards.
TreatHolho: ‘Breaking the wall’ of dementia with early prevention of Alzheimer’s disease.
StudyCoach: An online platform that connects New Zealand high school students and helps them build great study habits.
School Insider: An online platform matching high school students to study options abroad.
Seismic improvement of URM chimneys: Provides an effective, cost-efficient solution to unreinforced masonry chimneys, which have been shown to collapse easily during earthquakes.
Halo: The venture aims to provide information about the person’s medical condition and history to rescuers when they are unable to do it themselves.
Cat-trax: This is an end-to-end cloud-based application to fully digitise all aspects of cataract surgery. It will create significant improvements in efficiency and vastly enhanced functionality over the current paper-based system.
Mobilise with mobile: Blood clot formation in the limbs is a life threatening condition and can be prevented by frequent mobilisation. Our device will help immobilised people achieve the effect of mobilisation.
BioBreathe: Developing a safe and effective inhalable antifungal therapy for pulmonary aspergillosis. An inhalable formulation of a novel antifungal compound will be tested in an animal model for safety and efficacy.
Cryo Strap: An innovative means of assisting with RICE recovery for recent joint strains and sprains anywhere, anytime.
Social innovation winners
Sentinel Lighting Systems: Improves pedestrian security and confidence through a transferable, cost effective source of illumination retrofitted to existing street poles, lighting up otherwise dark footpaths at night across New Zealand.
Kai Relations Network: Starship doesn’t provide meals for all parents, yet every single child hospitalised has at least one parent staying with them. This venture plans to change this by providing nourishment for Kiwi families in need.
Love Socks: Socks made from wool that would have otherwise gone to waste. For every pair sold, another will be gifted to a child seeking shelter at the Women’s Refuge.
The MTBL: A novel plastics biodegradation service which uses recent advances in environmental science to turn problem plastics into useable, plastic-free outputs.
Closing The Gap: Helps reduce workplace gender inequality through access to information on firm-by-firm inequality, a guide to negotiating raises and promotions, and leaderboards for equal-opportunity firms.
Intruder Watch: Aims to develop a non-invasive diagnostic test for a chronic, debilitating disease (endometriosis), which could alleviate the prolonged suffering and lost fertility for many reproductive age women.
Artists of Aotearoa: Provides publishing opportunities to musicians, writers and visual artists through a high-engagement online multimedia platform.
GreenLightGo: A mobile application that allows users to pre-program wellbeing prompts into their daily life.
Superscope: Aims to empower and nurture the next generation of innovators and ethical problem-solvers. Its core offering is a child-friendly magazine that discusses ongoing world issues in playful forms.
IntelVision: a diagnostic app for the early detection of dyslexia, autism and ADHD giving youth equal opportunity within their learning environment.
Special
Faculty of Engineering
The Water U Trust: Experience the power of sunlight in converting polluted water into your ultra-pure drinking water by applying zero waste technology.
Agritech
Black Soldier Fly processor: The conversion of organic waste into a source of agricultural protein, oil and frass through the use of an insect, Hermetia illucens (Black Soldier Fly, BSF).
Robot Bird Chaser in Orchards: The use of small mobile robots to scare birds and reduce crop damage.
Faculty of Arts
FoodClub: App that matches people with a glut of produce to those who have none. A solution to all of our feijoa problems.
Department of Computer Science
Upscalin: Aims to reduce textile waste by converting it into fashionable products.
App prize
Strutagio: Enables men to conveniently access fashionable tailored formal shoes from the comfort of their own home.
Faculty of Education and Social Work
Ology: A mobile and web app that uses research-supported study methods to change the way students study.
UniServices
Patch & Go: A smart electronic skin sensor that can simultaneously promote rapid healing of external wounds while sensing the temperature of your body.
Actigaze: What touch interaction is today, eye gaze interaction will be tomorrow. Actigaze allows you to interact with a device using only your eyes – with the speed of the mouse.
AvA: An adeno-associated viral vector gene therapy that promotes regeneration of neurons to form new functional connections in chronic cases of spinal cord injury.
Magno-PCR: Provides real time, cost effective and portable solutions for DNA based diagnostics of infectious diseases, genetic abnormalities and cancer.
Weaver: Integrating state-of-the-art computational design, advanced composite materials and 3D printing to provide unprecedented desktop manufacturing capabilities to the medical, aerospace and high-performance sporting market.
Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences
Low Vision Mobile App: An apparatus that aids low vision patients (a person who is not able to see even with conventional vision correction methods).
Faculty of Law
Next Generation Legals: New Zealand Non-for Profit organization to provide on-demand generic legal advice to the community online, with answers supplied by a partnership between lawyers and law students.
National Institute of Creative Arts and Industries
New Direction: A more convenient way of marketing.
Department of Property
The Stationary Bus: To provide the service in a modified bus of lending expensive and specialised stationery for those who need it but are unwilling to buy it.
Faculty of Science
Uber Transport: An Uber-like transport app that connects buyers to travellers who can transport large goods and are already travelling to the destination of the buyer.
Chiasma
Catacorrect: Removing cataracts causes a variety of issues which aren’t addressed by current lens implants. The Catacorrect intraocular lens aims to knock such lenses into obscurity with an original three-pronged approach.
Whiua Ki Te Ao!
SEFARA: Aims to join a global movement in supporting and integrating refugees into new cultures. It fills a gap in the New Zealand settlement system by connecting refugees and employers.
The Barnacle: A compact, comprehensive data-logger attachable to surfaces exposed to seawater that simultaneously provides value by collecting academic-standard scientific data and optimising services provided by the diving industry.
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THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND BUSINESS SCHOOL
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