Just like that, another Disrupt It Weekend is in the books! This past weekend marked the fifth Disrupt It Weekend-style event in Thunder Bay. If you are not familiar with these events, they are weekend-long events where individuals pitch ideas, form teams, and build the foundation for a business; and finally, participants finish with a pitch of the plan to a panel of judges.
Each year brings new themes, challenges, and opportunities which makes every year just as exciting as the last! This year’s theme was wide open, any idea went. We saw many different ideas pitched on Friday night, and from there, it was narrowed down to eleven different ideas that would be developed over the weekend. Then, individuals self-formed teams around the eleven following ideas:
- Help Me Jack: Smartphone App used to connect you with services (electrician, plumber...) to walk you through the steps to fix what is broken without the high cost of them coming to your house.
- Quick Doctor: Smartphone app used to connect you with doctors and pharmacy’s making doctors and healthcare more accessible.
- Card 3: A new product that would automatically organize and sort game and trading cards.
- High Beam: Smartphone app that gives you a warning about wildlife on roadways.
- Comma: Smartphone app that connects you to local services such as plumbers and babysitters.
- Park IT: Smartphone app that allows you to pay for parking using credit cards by scanning a sticker code on the parking metre.
- Remote Greenhouses: Greenhouses that would promote year round growing in northern communities.
- CANVAAS: Design Software which allows you the ability to create holograms.
- We Conectt: Smartphone app that connects landlords and tenants to help with payment and communications.
- Antaeus: Phone case which has a built in pocket for a heat pack so your phone doesn’t stop working in the cold.
- For Free: Smartphone app connecting locals to free food. Live stream camera shows free leftover food from events and notifies locals to come and take it eliminating wasted food.
Throughout the weekend we had volunteer mentors on hand to help out participants with any questions they may have. This year we had 20 mentors with many years of experience who were able to help the teams throughout the process. After a long and dedicated 54 hours by all the teams, it was time to pitch. The teams were competing for 2 prizes; Grand Prize and People’s Choice Prize - which was determined on votes by all in attendance. It was a tough choice for the judges because all teams had put in a lot of work into validating their ideas. The winners from this year’s Disrupt It Weekend are:
Grand Prize- Park IT
People’s Choice: Antaeus
Thank you to this year’s sponsors: MNP, OCE, Lakehead University, Confederation College, and CEDC for helping make this year’s Disrupt It Weekend a success. After the fifth year of having another Disrupt It-style weekend, we definitely don’t see this being the last! So keep those ideas going and we will see you in 2020!