The McGill Dobson Cup powered by National Bank has grown and changed significantly since 2009. In November 2018, the National Bank took the bold and generous step when they donated $4-million to the McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship to support the McGill Dobson Cup.
The MasterCard Foundation followed suit and generously contributed 3 prizes totalling $23,000 to support Social Enterprise development amongst Mastercard Foundation Scholars-led teams in this year’s startup competition.
Overall, this has enabled our team at McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship to fund a total of 18 McGill startups with early stage funding, amounting to over $200,000. We have also been able to organize a series of over 15 workshops and events this past academic year designed to help the startups prepare for the 11th edition of the McGill Dobson Cup.
This is only the beginning as seed funding is only the first step. In the lead up to announcing the winners, for this year’s startup competition, we had 108 teams compete in the Semi-Finals with the top 40 teams competing in the Finals on March 27, 2019.
Congratulations to this year’s ambitious teams and a sincere thank you to all teams who participated in this year’s McGill Dobson Cup. Choosing the winners for each Track (Health Sciences, Social Enterprise, Small & Medium Enterprise, and Innovation Driven Enterprise) and all the additional prizes, was not an easy task.
Many thanks to all the Semi-Finals and Finals Judges and Mentors, partners, Student Executive Team members, and everyone involved who contributed towards making this year’s McGill Dobson Cup 2019 a resounding success!
Teams that are at a later stage, should consider applying to the upcoming McGill X-1 Accelerator program this summer (Applications are now open). For those who are still exploring the early stages of their idea, the McGill Lean Startup Program in the Fall is a must! We wish all teams the best of luck in the next stage of their development.
EngInE Prize
Axon: Faculties of Engineering and Science – $5,000
We’re building a $1,000 portable brain imaging scanner for point-of-care diagnosis in ambulances, field hospitals, sports teams, and patient rooms.
The Food and Agribusiness Convergent Innovation Prize
Observe Agriculture: Faculty of Agriculture & Environmental Sciences – $5,000
Observe Agriculture is a Montreal-based AgriTech startup founded by students from McGill University. Our first product is a modular crop quality sensor.
Avmor Prize for Social Responsibility
UsToo Community: Faculties of Arts and Law – $1,900
UsToo.Care anonymously and securely matches survivors of sexual violence based on aggressor or location. Survivors can collaboratively work with legal representation or police investigators, and access mental health professionals.
Mastercard Foundation-Dobson Startup Awards
1st Place – Safe Kasupe Limited: Faculty of Arts – $15,000
Water is not the source of life, it is life. At Safe Kasupe Ltd, we provide affordable clean water to eradicate negative social and health consequences of using unclean water.
2nd Place – 3.D.E.: Faculties of Medicine and Engineering – $5,000
3.D.E is an additive manufacturing company that focuses on applying 3D printing technology to address challenges of affordability, availability, and accessibility of prosthetics and educational model kits in low resource settings in Zimbabwe.
3rd Place – Yonja: Faculty of Arts – $3,000
Poor sanitation is a major setback to development. Yonja is here to provide the missing link between waste management service delivery companies and households for efficient, affordable and quality services.
Health Sciences Track 2019 Winners powered by National Bank
1st Place – nplex biosciences: Faculties of Medicine, Science and Engineering – $20,000
Nplex biosciences is developing the next-generation of protein-based blood tests. Our platform promises to unlock unprecedented efficiencies in drug development, biomarker discovery, and ultimately, precision medicine.
2nd Place – FemTherapeutics (formerly known as Gynoteck): Desautels Faculty of Management and Medicine – $12,000
FemTherapeutics is a leading innovator in medical diagnostics, preventative, and treatment methods for women’s health. We aim to personalize medicine as every woman is different.
3rd Place – LFANT: Faculties of Medicine, Science and Engineering – $8,000
LFANT is a company dedicated to the development of safe, reliable, and readily available commercial kits for the self-administered detection of STIs in the interest of public health and awareness.
Social Enterprise Track 2019 Winners powered by National Bank
1st Place – Turbodega: Desautels Faculty of Management (MBA) – $20,000
Turbodega is a software management tool that builds a network of small grocers in emerging countries and tracks their daily-sales in real time to provide them: 1) lower cost of goods, 2) access to fair working capital lines of credit, and 3) data-backed business advice.
2nd Place – PDT Food Depot: Desautels Faculty of Management, Agriculture & Environmental Sciences and Engineering: $12,000
PDT Food Depot redistributes surplus food from food producers to communities and organizations in need.
Also winners of the Murdoch Family Initiative Prize – $6,000
3rd Place – B3D Performance Inc.: Faculties of Engineering and Science – $8,000
B3D Performance Inc.: B3D Performance specializes in additive manufacturing (3D printing) using metal powders. We develop instrumentation to monitor the powder quality to reduce production costs and minimize the impact on the environment.
Small Medium Enterprise Track 2019 Winners powered by National Bank
1st Place – CHK PLZ: Faculty of Engineering – $20,000
CHK PLZ is a mobile payment application that streamlines the billing process at bars and restaurants, allowing customers to split items and pay the bill directly from their smartphone.
2nd Place – Shuttle Control: Faculty of Arts – $12,000
ShuttleControl is a Software-as-a-Service designed to revolutionize the way courtesy shuttle services are offered around the world. We offer an all-in-one solution to increase customer satisfaction and make shuttle operations easy.
3rd Place – Yuma – Faculties of Science and Engineering – $8,000
Yuma is a service that offers meal plans at your work. When you need personalized meals delivered to your workplace at the best price, Yuma doesn’t take it as a joke.
Innovation Driven Enterprise Track 2019 Winners powered by National Bank
1st Place – First Mark: Faculty of Science – $20,000
First Mark creates software for film sets to run digitally, safely, and with less effort, so that production teams focus on what matters – making great films, series, commercials, and shows.
2nd Place – Chatler Technologies: Faculty of Engineering – $12,000
Chatler Technologies Inc.: Chatler is on a mission to innovate the way we interact and buy from businesses on mobile devices. Using chatbot technology, Chatler brings the conversation into mobile commerce.
3rd Place, Cannafish: Faculty of Agriculture & Environmental Sciences – $8,000
Cannafish aims to work with fish farmers, valorizing their waste using a unique bioreactor technology and worms to produce a biological hydroponic solution to grow a wide variety of crops.
Many thanks to all the Semi-Finals and Finals judges who played an important role in screening all 108 startup teams in the Semi-Finals, picking our top 40 Finalists, and choosing the winners in this year’s McGill Dobson Cup 2019 powered by National Bank.
This blog post was originally published on The Dobson Chronicles on April 4, 2019.
