This past October 7, as part of the AquaHacking 2016 Summit: United for the St. Lawrence, the winner of the AquaHacking 2016 Challenge was announced, from a pool of five finalists. These teams have been working for several months on their technological solutions to help protect the St. Lawrence River.
First place goes to…
The Info-Baignade team was named our big winner, walking away with a $10,000 grant, a first client contract worth $10,000, one year of support from the IBM ecosystem, a guaranteed spot in Concordia University’s District 3 innovation incubator and six hours of consultation with finance, marketing and legal professionals. Their solution is a mobile app that acts as an early warning system, tracking the risk of microbiological contamination (SAP Micro) in the St. Lawrence River to predict the risk of contamination for swimmers.
2nd place
Solutions to Innovate came in second place with their solution: a system of flexible, modular piers to help stop the erosion of riverbanks caused by winds and boating activities. This team wins a $7,500 grant, a first client contract worth $7,500, one year of support from the IBM ecosystem, a guaranteed spot in the Centech innovation incubator (École de technologie supérieure) and four hours of consultation with finance, marketing and legal professionals.
3rd place
Third place went to the eFish team. This group of university students developed a mobile application for the fishing community. The app provides extensive information about fish species and current fishing restrictions, as well as information shared by other fishers, maps of waterways and access points, basics for planning a fishing trip and, of course, the option to share it all with friends on social media! eFish has won a $5,000 grant, a first client contract worth $4,000, one year of support from the IBM ecosystem and three hours of consultation with finance, marketing and legal professionals.
4th place
The H2EAU team took fourth place, winning a $3,000 grant, one year of support from the IBM ecosystem and two hours of consultation with finance, marketing and legal professionals. In order to help preserve the St. Lawrence River, this team of student researchers in water science developed a web app called GO-Explo, which encourages the exploration, protection and value of the River’s many assets, both educational and recreational.
5th place
The Dronoflow team, comprising one biologist and three students from École de technologie supérieure, also members of the Dronolab student lab, propose using long-range drones to capture data, take aerial photographs and draw water samples for scientific analysis. This solution earned a $2,000 grant and one year of support from the IBM ecosystem.
Honourable mention from the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Environment and the Fight against Climate Change
For this year’s edition of the AquaHacking Challenge, the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Environment and the Fight against Climate Change decided to award an honourable mention to one of the finalists for project innovation. The Dronoflow team received this honour.
The final jury was composed of five distinguished individuals, who are well known for their contributions to innovation technology, the environment and entrepreneurship: Mitch Garber, Mylène Paquette, Jean-François Barsoum, Caroline Losson and Philippe III de Gaspé Beaubien.