AMS Entrepreneurship Hub (eHub) is back with the second edition of its biannual event RBC Get Seeded.
The event took place on November 18 at the Gallery 2.0 with 15 teams pitching their startups, irrespective of the stage they are in, in 90 seconds. Out of the 15, 9 won $500 based on the votes by the audience.
To eHub Coordinator Tahir Adatia, the event is more about the morale boost than the $500 that the teams take away. “The event also gives teams the exposure to practice [and refine] their pitches,” said Adatia.
Get Seeded received over 40 applications this year so candidates had to go through a screening process just to attend, explained Adatia.
“We are looking for ways to engage the audience as well as have a wide variety of ideas across industries and disciplines. We also want to see community building projects that can help people at UBC,” he said. “It is really amazing to see how students recognise a problem on campus and are willing to do something to change it.”
This year some of the startups addressed issues affecting UBC students. I Know A Girl (IKG), one of the winners of the event, is a platform for women to network outside of their faculty. For the co-founder of IKG, Lilla Bond, the business is about “celebrating women.”
Ferrofluid Filtration, a startup that aims to remove microplastics from water, was another winner, and founder, Aaron Janz, is already thinking about the future of the company.
“... for us, the next step is to use the money to buy equipment as well as send samples to labs that can confirm how effective [our] process is,” said Janz.
AdaptiClew also won. The startup aims to develop therapeutic cancer nanobots, and founders Tylo Roberts and Rajeshwar Lally intend to use the money to fund trials of their product.
The eHub has seven volunteers who each help students by introducing them to resources that are available on campus.
“Sometimes people feel that you need the best idea to get ahead and without a good idea you don’t have access to resources to develop that idea,” said Adatia. “eHub helps the students by introducing them to resources that aren’t easily accessible as well as give them support throughout the process of validating ideas.”
FoodBuddy, one of the winners of last year’s RBC Get Seeded Event, shared their success story with the audience.
“E hub and the RBC Get Seeded Event really helped us get started,” said Arnav Mishra, co-founder of FoodBuddy. “The seed money helped us do consumer research and now we are about to launch our app next week on 26 November. I would really like to thank Tahir [Adatia] who mentored us throughout this process and helped us get resources that got us here.”