An excited and curious crowd gathered at the University of Auckland Business School on the evening of 17 August awaiting the announcement of the Velocity $100k Challenge Qualifiers for 2017. The last six months has seen hundreds of students ideate, validate and pull together amazing and inspired venture ideas.

Velocity is the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s globally renowned entrepreneurship programme. Over the last 14 years participants have gone on to ignite more than 120 ventures, attract over $220 million in investment and create more than 460 jobs in more than 35 countries. Velocity alumni achieve incredible success.

Guest speaker for the night was the inspiring Deanna Yang from Moustache. At 22 Deanna opened her first Moustache milk and cookie bar next to Auckland’s Civic Theatre. This was an instant hit and she has attracted a cult-like following for her delicious cookies made using high quality ingredients like Whittakers chocolate, free-range eggs and New Zealand butter.

For a while Moustache had a nomad existence, with Deanna’s business travelling the countryside in a converted Bedford bus. Today Moustache bars are operating at the University of Auckland campus, Karangahape Road, Orakei Bay Village and are available through a home delivery service.

The Velocity $100K Challenge Qualifiers for 2017 are:

• Suture Future – This invention is a suturing device which will improve speed and precision with a great potential to save lives and reduce healthcare cost.
• Riaka – A pair of shoes that is fashionable and functional without compromising the wearer’s independence.
• Invoke – Wireless sensors can be worn on the body or mounted on an object in order to summon it into an interactive experience.
• Brightenz – You can play with safe and natural “glow in the dark” bacteria with our “Paint with glowing bacteria” kit.
• SENS – A cloud-based, comprehensive, learning readiness assessment for children designed to maximise positive learning outcomes throughout their school journey.
• AgentME – To revolutionize the agency world allowing clients, creative, models and talent to globally search interact and organize contractual creative work at any time.
• Ocrei – Ocrei is an all-in-one solution to simplify splitting bill payments between a group.
• Care Aid – A device that enables discrete and confidential STI self-testing.
• Kara Education – An online education platform for children with hearing difficulties.
• STOP^TM System for Smart Sewers – A system designed to overcome the current shortcomings in sewer networks by providing insight and data profiling previously not possible using conventional methods.
• Diabetes Screening App – An app that allows screening for diabetes.
• Honey Signatures for Classification – A new standard in honey assessment based on spectral signatures which accommodates drawbacks of common physical and chemical assessment.
• WiCaps – A wireless power transfer solution for implantable biomedical devices utilising capacitive power transfer technology (CPT).
• Green Reinforcment – A joint venture company which manufactures the first generation of high-performing steel fibres as a viable alternative to conventional.
• MicroVision – A camera system that analyses the impact and behaviour of forces on mechanical structures creating data that can be used to create better, longer-lasting, and more performant structures.

The Velocity $100k Challenge Qualifiers for 2017.