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Put More “Cha-Ching” into Retail Sales

Participant: Henry Tang and Saman Raza, Carleton University
Business name: Invotrax
Concept: a leader in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) solutions. Invotrax will focus on bringing new applications of RFID to the market as well as new, creative marketing tools. The first product, Digtial Clothing Assistant (DCA), will serve as a personal clothing assistant to help customers make purchase decisions while boosting retail sales. DCA will enable customers to create a complete outfit - without having to leave the change room. More Finalists >

Overview
Local Competition
National Competition
Judging
2008 Judges
Award Ceremony

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Reach for the stars…

Legendary adman Leo Burnett once said “When you reach for the stars you may not quite get one, but you won’t come up with a handful of mud either.” Helping young entrepreneurs reach for the stars is a big part of what The Wes Nicol Entrepreneurial Awards is all about. Whether or not you or your team is the grand prize winner, you’ll learn a staggering amount about entrepreneurship and how to:

• Identify a business opportunity
• Develop a solid business plan
• Write a compelling executive summary
• Pitch your ideas convincingly
• Build a potent support network

More than anything you’ll have a remarkable opportunity to litmus test your business thinking and ideas through an exhilarating competitive process that mirrors real-world challenges while introducing you to top-notch business thinkers and entrepreneurs. Are you ready?

Starts with Local Competitions

The Nicol Entrepreurial Award gets kick-started with intense Local Competitions on the campus of each participating school. A rigorous judging process whittles candidates down to three award winners from each school with the first prize winner being eligible to compete for the National Award. Here’s how it works:

• A short list of teams at the local level competes by presenting their business plan to a local team of judges. Typically local judges are members of faculty, local business people, alumni, and other entrepreneurs from the local community.
• The Wes Nicol Entrepreneurial Awards provides a prize for the top three teams as follows:
  • $5,000 for first place, $2,000 for second, and $1,000 for third.
• Each of the winning teams is invited to submit their plan for a pre-screening process to qualify for the National Award- fondly called “The Nicol.”

New for the 2008 program!

A new Regional Competition format has been created to assist in narrowing down the teams selected to attend the National Wes Nicol Award competition in Ottawa. Our plan is to introduce four Regional Competitions across Canada by 2009.

This year we are inaugurating our first regional competition in Southwestern Ontario - the Nicol LaunchPad $50K Venture Creation Competition. Students from Brock University, Conestoga College, McMaster University, University of Guelph, University of Waterloo, University of Western Ontario, and Wilfrid Laurier University will compete in this exciting second round of competition. Students from these institutions first compete in a local competition on each of their campuses where the top 3 businesses at each school are selected to compete in the Regional Nicol LaunchPad $50K in early April. The top 4 teams from each of 4 universities entered into the Nicol LaunchPad $50K will then go on to compete at the National Wes Nicol Award competition. For more information on the Southwestern Ontario regional competition, please visit www.launchpad50k.ca.

Once all the Regional Competitions are in place, each region's winner will automatically advance to Ottawa. The remaining two finalists will be selected by invitation (strong, second-place selections from two of the four regions).

National Award program

The Award program builds to an exciting crescendo with the six finalist teams and their faculty sponsor being invited to Ottawa for the National Wes Nicol Award competition and gala dinner which is held annually in Ottawa.

• This process involves members of the judging panel reviewing the plans from the view point of a Venture Capitalist, with the goal of narrowing down the list to the top six plans.

Details on Local Competition
Details on National Competition
Details on judges and judging criteria