MAKO Partners With the 2018 Queen’s Entrepreneurs’ Competition

This year, MAKO Design + Invent partnered with one of the longest-running and renowned business plan competitions in the world, the Queen’s Entrepreneurs’ Competition. This competition receives entries from innovators from around the globe who have grand, new invention ideas that harness the potential to change and innovate the world we live in. The winners also walk away with over $75,000 in prizes!

The audience watches as participants in the Queen’s Entrepreneurs’ Competition pitch their business ideas.

The Process

From the plethora of business plans submitted, the judges chose 15 teams to travel to Toronto, Canada, and pitch their new invention ideas to a distinguished panel of Canadian business leaders. The pitch weekend brings together some of the brightest minds from near and far who have new invention ideas that never fail to impress the judges.

Prizing

So what’s in it for the winning team? Not only will the first-place winner receive $50,000 in prize money that will critically bolster the young entrepreneurs’ ability to grow their budding business and turn their innovative new invention idea into a reality, but they also receive consulting opportunities with renowned corporations and venture capital firms.

In addition to securing the financing they need to expand their operations, the competition itself brings a diverse group of talented, young innovators together under one roof to exchange ideas, broaden their networks, and learn.

The grand prize at the 2018 Queen’s Entrepreneurs’ Competition.

The Winners

This year, the competition took place in January and the winners were:

1st place: Vena Medical

Vena Medical has developed a forward-viewing imaging MicroAngioscope that will provide medical professionals with a real-time navigational perspective, thus making medical procedures faster, easier, and safer. Canada is home to many brilliant inventors with new invention ideas, but this one was created by two emerging innovators located especially close to home at the University of Waterloo.

2nd place: Borealis Wind

Borealis Wind designed a wind turbine de-icing system that requires low maintenance and helps solve a problem that is hindering the ability of numerous corporations in the wind industry to produce renewable energy.

The HelpWear team pitching to the judges of the Queen’s Entrepreneurs’ Competition.

3rd place: HelpWear

HelpWear’s product, the HeartWatch, is a wearable 24/7 heart monitoring system that instantly detects when the user suffers a heart attack and contacts emergency services.

The team that took home the Most Creative and Innovative Award was Reels on Wheels.

Overall, the competition brought together several amazing inventors and highlighted a few incredible, new invention ideas. MAKO Design + Invent is honored to have supported the winners with in-kind business strategy consulting, as finalists received advice from our experts on taking their product to the next level.

We are looking forward to Queen’s University’s upcoming QEC and the celebration of more novel invention ideas!

About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry's leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!