Hockey analytics and children’s rompers, what do they have in common?
Both of these “bright ideas” were winners of the 2019 BCIT Student Innovation Challenge.
The BCIT Student Innovation Challenge is an annual contest aimed at providing mentorship funding, and other resources to support BCIT students in bringing their innovative or entrepreneurial ideas to life. The challenge is composed of two categories:
- Entrepreneurship: Innovative ideas, entrepreneurship, and commercial products
- Applied Research: Innovative project solving a real-world problem
A Sustainability Award is newly introduced for the 2021 challenge. This award presents $1,000 to the most sustainable idea or project in each category.
“With the generous support of our sponsors this year, we are providing $13,000 to support our students in making their dream a reality,” says Kim Dotto, Dean, BCIT Applied Research. “All BCIT students with a bright idea are highly encouraged to enter the 2021 BCIT Student Innovation Challenge.”
The challenge is now open for entries until April 7, 2021. To date, the BCIT Student Innovation Challenge has inspired more than hundreds of interesting and innovative student projects, including DRIVE Hockey and Jones Baby & Company.
DRIVE Hockey: Bringing sports analytics to youth hockey teams
DRIVE Hockey is bringing the power of sports analytics to over 80,000 youth hockey teams. Every professional sports team embraces sports analytics to make a better evaluation, development, and performance-based decisions. There are millions of youth players and coaches who would benefit tremendously from having sports analytics to guide their development progress. However, this data is extremely labour intensive and sophisticated to collect and analyze.
BCIT alumnus Mike Dahlstedt worked with the MAKE+ team to bring his capstone project alive. This included extensive research, business planning, prototyping, and a series of tests proving the ability to automatically track statistics during a hockey game. DRIVE Hockey is planning to equip 2,500 rinks with tracking systems over the next five years.
Jones Baby & Company: Hassle-free, Canadian-made children clothing
Jones Baby & Company is a niche kids clothing company specializing in the creation of Canadian made comfortable and durable clothing. Functional rompers that make childhood more fun and parenthood more enjoyable, no buttons, zippers, or snaps, ultra-smooth, child-safe, extremely stretchy, and so simple that a child can independently dress themselves.
“The Student Innovation Challenge was one of the coolest experiences that I could have ever asked for in terms of personal growth,” says Maxwell Jones, Owner of Jones Baby & Company “I’m so glad to be part of a school that supports their students and wants to see them succeed. If you have an idea or you’re already fully submerged into a business that you’ve started, definitely submit an entry.”
If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, more information available here.