Five panelists, five innovative and creative ocean related business ideas, and lots of tough questions designed to make the presenters sweat their answers.
On October 7, students from AV俱乐部 and Kiel, Germany鈥檚 joint (NSERC CREATE TOSST) summer school had the opportunity to pitch their best business ideas to a panel of Nova Scotian business moguls in a 鈥淒ragons鈥� Den鈥� style competition.
A Canadian-German partnership
TOSST-HOSST is an innovative research joint doctoral school that prepares graduates from Canada and Germany for an increasingly internationalized work environment. The partnership between the two universities enables access to information, methodologies, and state of the art technologies available in both Kiel, Germany and Halifax.听
While in Halifax, students had the opportunity to visit ocean technology companies and learn first-hand about the process of innovation, product development and marketing of ocean technologies from company representatives.
鈥淥ur TOSST and HOSST PhD candidates are all studying various aspects of marine science, from seafloor to atmosphere and marine policy to past oceans,鈥� says Rebecca Langlois, TOSST Coordinator. 鈥淭he two-week summer school is their first introduction to the business world.鈥�
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In attendance at the event was Werner Wnendt, Ambassador of Germany to Canada. Wnendt was on campus at the invitation of TOSST and discussed a variety of AV俱乐部 research and teaching activities as well as German-Canadian community initiatives during his visit. Over the course of two days, he participated in a number of activities associated with the Canadian-German Joint Doctoral Program.
Pitching the panelists
This is the second edition of a 鈥淒ragons鈥� Den鈥� style competition at AV俱乐部 hosted by TOSST, with the first one taking place in 2013.
鈥淭he students learned that they will be participating in the event at the beginning of the summer school,鈥� says Markus Kienast, a professor in Dal鈥檚 Department of Oceanography and one of the directors of TOSST. 鈥淭hey were a little hesitant at first to be taken out of their comfort zone, but spent any spare time over two weeks diligently developing their ideas and pitches.鈥�
Each group was given 15 minutes to present their product to the panel, followed by a 15-minute question-and-answer session.
The panelists were Christine Penney (director of corporate affairs, Clearwater Fine Foods, Inc), Desiree Stockermans (operations manager, Ocean Sonics), Hana Nelson (proprietor, Afishionado), Mark Jollymore (president/CEO, AMIRIX) and Tony Hall (CEO, Welaptega).
The goal of each group was to convince the panelists that they had a winning business idea. The students came up with a wide range of business ideas, which included:
- Slowmocean: An ocean themed bar for patrons to 鈥渄ive in and chill out.鈥�
- LABrain: An integrated, cloud based system that records exactly how lab experiments are completed so they can be replicated without mistakes.听
- Fish Club: A monthly service that offers new and exciting recipes focusing on local fish species.
- SOFTO: A small underwater turbine focused on generating power to recharge batteries.
- F1 Trap:听 A flotation device developed for recovering lobster traps
After much deliberation by the panelists, the group behind SOFTO took home the prize. The underwater turbine was seen as a viable idea that was seen as having considerable market potential. Their prize? Bragging rights, and a gift presented by Mr. Wnendt. Sounds like a deal worth taking.
For more information about TOSST-HOSST, .