For Immediate Release
October 12, 2023
Between September 22-24, 2023, the inaugural econext Ideathon took place, seeing over 50 undergraduate students from Memorial University compete to come up with the best idea to solve energy efficiency challenges in Newfoundland and Labrador (NL).
“One of the biggest challenges the world will face in its pursuit of net zero will be how we manage our energy use and the same goes for NL,” said Kieran Hanley, CEO of econext. “What better way is there to come up with some new creative ideas than to engage with the talent in our university?”
Over the course of the weekend, 12 teams made up of undergraduate students across several disciplines developed their ideas and pitched their solutions to a panel of judges for the top prize of $3,000.
“Teams had access to subject matter experts from industry who volunteered their time as mentors,” said Hanley, “plus a series of workshops to help them refine their ideas and present their solutions.”
The first-place prize, sponsored by Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, went to Eco-Elect (Tyara Andhin, Hannah Doyle, Kamsi Ifeanyichukwu, and Saju Vijayakanthanwho) pitched an economic inverter battery service and solution to help balance electricity demand at the residential level.
The second-place prize, sponsored by Hatch, went to Gravity (Samuel Adeoye, William Church, Mathew Emshey, and Lumi Oyelowowho) pitched a community-scale gravity-based energy storage system using existing infrastructure.
The third-place prize, sponsored by Mysa, went to TBA (Draco Dunphy, Syed Anas Minhaj Kazmi, and Fahim Yasir) who pitched a product and program to have EV owners in the province install smart charging systems to help avoid all EVs being charged at the exact same time.
The event’s opening ceremonies were sponsored by Aker Solutions, with TakeCharge sponsoring and providing support throughout the event.
“The level of excitement we saw this weekend and the quality of the solutions presented was remarkable,” said Hanley. “Our clean energy future is bright. Congratulations to all of those who participated.”
The econext Ideathon was made possible through partnership with the Business + Higher Education Roundtable, and with support from the Government of Canada.
More events will be taking place in 2024-25. If you are interested in partnering on a future event, please contact Alex Rumbolt at alex@econext.ca.
econext is an association that accelerates clean growth in Newfoundland and Labrador and works on behalf of over 200 members to foster environmentally sustainable economic development. More information can be found at https://econext.ca.
The Business + Higher Education Roundtable (BHER) is a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization bringing together some of Canada’s largest companies and leading post-secondary institutions. Since 2015, BHER has worked to harness the strengths of Canada’s business and post-secondary education sectors to build opportunities for young Canadians, boost innovation and drive collaboration. Learn more at www.bher.ca. Visit our WIL Hub for ways to explore, invest in and create quality WIL opportunities.
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