Sprint to Innovate: The Innovation Challenge Powered by Canada Life
Sprint to Innovate, powered by Canada Life, brings together post-secondary students from varied disciplines such as technology, business, entrepreneurship, and more. Sprint to Innovate is brought to you by University of Manitoba – Faculty of Science, Red River College Polytechnic, and Tech Manitoba. All Winnipeg Post Secondary Students are invited to participate. Students will learn about innovation while collaborating in a fun and exciting challenge to build a minimum viable prototype in two days.
We are pleased to announce that our next Sprint to Innovate: The Innovation Challenge is the weekend of Friday, January 31 to Sunday, February 2, 2025! We start the event with a Networking session on Thursday, January 30 with a training session at University of Manitoba.
We invite all companies to review our sponsorship and mentorship opportunities, and to consider submitting a business challenge; and for post-secondary students to consider participating.
How the Event Works
Teams of 4 to 6 students will choose from available business challenges provided by industry. Students will then work together with support from mentors to create a solution, including developing a prototype to be presented to judges on the final day.
A prototype is a simple experimental model of the proposed product used to learn from. Prototypes range from low-fidelity (paper-based) prototypes that are used to explain concepts all the way to high-fidelity prototypes that have functional elements with more detail. Teams may consist of technology and business students.
How To Get Involved
As an Organization
We are looking for a sponsor to provide $3500 for our student participants on Sunday, February 2. Your $3500 sponsorship would earn you:
- Sponsor the event.
- Volunteer your time as a mentor.
- Provide us with a Business Challenge that your organization has by emailing ckubara@rrc.ca.
As a Student
Students from any Manitoba post-secondary school may participate in a team at Sprint to Innovate.
Want to know more? Come to our Student Information Session on Thursday, December 12 at 12:00 PM Join the Meeting
Register your team today!
Challenges
Student teams will have the opportunity to request which challenge they want to work on January 27.
CHALLENGE #1 Popp3r Cybersecurity
How might we position CYB3RGURU as the go-to cybersecurity assessment tool?
CHALLENGE #2 My Student Wellbeing
With billions of dollars lost to scams every year in North America, how can we prevent this from continuing to happen?
CHALLENGE #3 Talnetics
How might we create a solution that bridges the gap between talented individuals and talent recruiters by increasing visibility, fostering collaboration, and providing data-driven insights to ensure successful partnerships?
CHALLENGE #4 Exera Solutions
How might we develop an AI-powered HR platform that identifies and mitigates workplace biases and provides organizations with actionable, predictive recommendations to foster a more inclusive employee experience throughout the entire employee lifecycle?
CHALLENGE #5 City of Winnipeg
How might we transform vacant buildings into opportunities for a safer, more vibrant city?
CHALLENGE #6 Canada Life
As companies evolve their way of working, team members are finding challenges with respect to commuting to work (be it parking, transit, driving, biking). How might we develop a technology-based solution that can help employees reduce the challenges associated with coming into the office – and to make it fun?
Check back for one more challenge!
Sponsorship Opportunities
Refreshment Sponsor – $3500
- Recognition on Thursday, January 30 at our refreshment table at the Networking and Training event
- Recognition on Sunday, February 2 at our refreshment table at breakfast, snack, and lunch
- Recognition on event materials, website and registration.
- Social media recognition
- The opportunity to be a mentor to a team throughout the weekend
Event Sponsor – $1000
We are looking for sponsors to provide $1000 towards prize money to the winning teams.
Your $1000 sponsorship would earn you:
- Recognition throughout the event
- Recognition on event materials
- Social media recognition
- The opportunity to be a mentor to a team throughout the event
Title Sponsor
Thank you to our Title Sponsor Canada Life!
Thank you to our Event Sponsors!
Thank you to our supporting sponsor Red River College Polytechnic
