UNB Team Wins Grand Prize at NBIF Breakthru Competition
Entrepreneurial teams from UNB have had a long history of winning the NBIF Breakthru Business Plan Competition, and this year is no different.
The team, composed of 4th year undergraduate business students Jordan DeWinter and Pablo Alvarez won the competition's grand prize, raising more than $145,000 for their company, Scene Sharp.
On top of the $145,000, their video won the Viewer's Choice Award, receiving almost 70% of all votes. The award, sponsored by CBC television, means they will be heading to Toronto where they will appear on the set of CBC's Dragon's Den to pitch their idea. Watch for them on the show airing next fall.
The pair became a part of this project through the International Business and Entrepreneurship Center's (IBEC) Activator program, which matched them with Scene Sharp's founder, Yun Zhang. Dr. Zhang is a UNB professor of geodesy and geomatic engineering, and has been with the university for over 11 years.
The lens and chip technology behind Scene Sharp was developed by Dr. Zhang and has worldwide implications for a camera's effectiveness. It can detect the 3-D location of a moving object and provide an image that is three times sharper than anything currently on the market.
Alvarez certainly got it right when he commented, "this award is an amazing thing not only for us, but for New Brunswick as well". The continued success of UNB students and faculty can only make the province's future brighter.
