Over 250 teams from across the University entered this year’s Velocity Innovation Challenge, where students and staff were enticed to submit 1,000 words detailing their business or social enterprise ideas to be in to win $1,000 from a total prize pool of $43,000.

The prize-giving was held on 24 May at a packed-out auditorium full of hopeful anticipation as winners were announced and cheered. Ideas were diverse and came from every faculty across the University. It is encouraging to see an abundant flow of innovative problem solvers attracted to partake in the Velocity Innovation Challenge each year.

Keynote speaker at the prize-giving event was Siân Simpson, Director of Community at Kiwi Landing Pad, who shared her journey, tips for getting started, and how to get involved in the entrepreneurial eco-system.

The quality of judging of the Velocity Innovation Challenge was outstanding, with many industry experts from the New Zealand entrepreneurial ecosystem giving a significant amount of their time to go through entries and select the winning ideas. An experienced moderating panel oversaw the process and the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Velocity leadership team are grateful for everyone’s time and energy to support this year’s Challenge.

“Velocity is extremely grateful to the 105 judges who contributed their time, effort, and expertise to help us identify the winners — their passion is contagious and we couldn’t run a challenge on this scale without their support,” Velocity CEO Matt Canham says.

“We’d also like to congratulate and thank all those who entered their creative and entrepreneurial ideas into the Innovation Challenge this year. The depth of knowledge and passion that the ideas conveyed was truly inspirational, making our judges’ task of selecting the winning ideas very difficult. Of course none of this would be possible without the support of our incredible sponsors who I’d like to thank on behalf of the entire Velocity community for enabling us to do this important work.”

Prize winners or not, all entrants were offered judges’ feedback at a session on 30 May and advice on how to develop their entries further. Those who want support to keep progressing their idea can do so through ongoing Velocity activity and also the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship “Idea Bootcamp”. This programme is taking place over the inter-semester break, and is designed to grow or strengthen venture ideas ahead of the Velocity $100K challenge in July.

See here for information about the winners

The 2018 Velocity Innovation Challenge prize winners.