2017 eChallenge celebrates young entrepreneurs.

Monday, 13 November 2017

A team that has developed a new way of assisting high density community living has taken out the premier prize in this year’s eChallenge awards and has won $10,000 in prize money plus $2500 worth of prizes.

The Australian eChallenge is an annual competition-based learning experience that develops strategic business thinking for early-stage entrepreneurial ventures.

Teams pitch business proposals for their new, previously unfunded business concepts, to potential investors from the local business community.

Run since 2001 by the University of Adelaide’s Entrepreneurship, Commercialisation and Innovation Centre (ECIC), the competition is a proving ground for future entrepreneurs.

Teams compete for cash prizes - this year a total prize pool of more than $340,000 - and the prestige of being awarded the most outstanding Australian eChallenge entrepreneurial venture of the year.

“Entries for this year’s Australian eChallenge awards have been consistently high. The teams’ concepts show ingenuity, creativity and diversity. Ideas are rigorously examined by the best minds in business and research for their originality, viability and impact,” says Pro-Vice Chancellor - Entrepreneurship, and Director, Entrepreneurship, Commercialisation and Innovation Centre (ECIC) at the University of Adelaide, Professor Noel Lindsay.

“Many past winners have gone on to develop successful businesses. This shows that the awards are a proving ground for entrepreneurial minds of the future. The Australian eChallenge can create genuine commercial prospects which help South Australia flourish,” he says.

153 teams, consisting of 720 participants, took part in this year’s competition. Competition streams include Tertiary, Schools, Social Enterprise, Climate Response, Cybersecurity, Medical Innovations, and Wool Innovation.

Teams that enter the Tertiary stream must have at least one student member from one of South Australia’s tertiary institutions, including TAFE.

As part of the competition, participants also benefit from workshops conducted by experts in their field, the opportunity to work with business mentors, connection with the business and research community and the opportunity to enrol in the eChallenge.

Winners have been announced on Friday 10 November at a gala presentation at the Adelaide Oval.

Winners in each stream are:

Winner’s details are embargoed until 12.05am (ACDT) Saturday 11 November 2017.

Tertiary stream winners:

1st Communitilink. Tom Welsby, Josh Marcus, Aaron Smedley

A new way of assisting high density community living which allows members to share information about where they live.

2nd The Blackwatch academy. Elise Gordon and Nicola Gordon

Seeks to connect alumni graduates with current year 10 to 12 high school students to provide a tutoring service which bypasses a theoretical focus, and shapes the wellbeing of both the tutor and tutee.

3rd Polygloss. Lana Toogood and Benjamin Lim

The camera for language learning. A mobile app that takes an image of an object or place and uses AI to identify and translate the label of the image into the desired language of the user.

Cybersecurity Winner sponsored by TechInSA:

CRYPTK. Adam Weigold, Raghu Kotha, Luke Lombe, Dennis McMasters, Daniel Floreani and Mihkel Trink

A hybrid decentralised data processing architecture designed for secure, scalable management of data storage, file sharing, user access, email, chat, cloud applications and network administration within enterprise.

Climate Response Winner:

Tide2Tank. Harry Carpenter, Ieva Daenke, Sam DeSantis and Christopher Guzik

Recent advances in production have developed a process to turn the humble brown seaweed into biofuels. Tide2Tank aims to provide this directly to fuel merchants in order to offset the vast majority of liquid fuel imports.

Social Enterprise Winner:

The Good Scout. Clair Crowley and Linda Anderson
Revolutionising accessible travel planning by bringing together the most amazing destinations, accommodation, travel experiences and services out there, all into the one spot.

Wool Innovation Winner:

Wool Stunners from Deakin University. Shijo Mathew, Sanket Narode, Sarika Jaikumar, Vrajesh Prajapati and Sharon Krithika.

An easy to use, on-farm testing device, which allows sheep farmers to identify the parasite count of their flock without requiring a laboratory. This will prevent unnecessary drenching of sheep and keep the overhead lab costs down.

Medical Innovation Winners:

Joint 1st M2P2. Professor Matt McDonald and Dr Peter Peduolias

M2P2 Pty Ltd has developed a new spinal implant that will improve treatment for spinal degeneration which is becoming more significant as our population ages.

Joint 1st Hormonal Stimulation in Human IVF. Mark Nottle and Johan Smitz

A new technique that improves IVF treatment by overcoming the need for hormonal therapy, and also significantly reduces the cost of treatment.

High School Winners:

Joint 1st Homegrown. St Peters Girls’. Aditi Tamhankar, Annabelle Langley, Isobel Tan and Teegan Lindsay

HomeGrown is a mobile app that allows people to sell and trade excess veggie-patch produce in their local communities.

Joint 1st Watch Out. St Peters Girls’. Zaina Khan, Ammi Yagnik, Anushrii Nair and Olivia Zito

Watch Out will enable its users to call the police in dangerous situations by scanning the person’s finger, it will notify the police of the watch’s location and will begin recording from the moment it is pressed.

The Australian eChallenge awards are made possible through support from many partners in business and industry especially Australian Wool Innovation and TechInSA.

www.adelaide.edu.au/echallenge

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