REGINA — After a fast-paced 24 hours, young entrepreneurs pitched their innovative ideas in the hopes of securing seed money for their business from Conexus Credit Union.
Five teams competed live on stage at Canada’s Farm Show to win the judges’ and audience’s votes with engaging three-minute pitches. Teams formed just a day earlier solved problems, conducted market research with ag producers in attendance at the show, built a minimum viable product, and perfected their pitches – all in 24 hours.
“The entire event was super exciting, especially because I had never been to a development-focused hackathon before,” says participant Kai Nim, the FeedFlow team lead who delivered the winning onstage pitch.
“Other events are more about brainstorming ideas and doing research. At 24 Hour Startup | AGTECH, we had to build the product and get it on stage quickly. I'm super proud of what we achieved and couldn't have asked for a more talented team.”
“We’re working hard to keep building our product,” says Nim. “Right now, we’re focused on development, customer validation, and setting up the business.”
Here are the 24 Hour Startup | AGTECH winners:
- • First place winner: FeedFlow, a software solution that aggregates, interprets, and visualizes key feed data for ag producers. FeedFlow won $4,000 from Conexus Credit Union and $5,000 of in-kind legal services from McKercher LLP.
- • Best technology: AgMentor, an app that allows ag producers to scan the interior console of their farm machinery to provide information on how to operate properly and efficiently. AgMentor won $2,000 from Conexus Credit Union.
- • People’s Choice Award: Scan My Herd, a system that taps into the data potential cattle herds have from their existing RFID tags to display centrally manage information like vaccinations, injuries, and more. Audience members voted for this team as their favourite. Scan My Herd won $1,000 from Conexus Credit Union.
At the end, three judges, all experts in their fields, asked engaging questions and decided on the most promising ideas. The judges were Chad Cardiff (Founder and Producer of Binstor), Karissa Peterson (Founder and CEO of Haus of Ops), and Mokah Shmigelsky (Founder and CEO of OneCup AI).
“As a forward-thinking credit union, we’re continually looking for new ways to support our members and communities. Looking back at Saskatchewan’s entrepreneurial landscape just a few years ago, there weren’t many resources, funding, or space to help local startups launch, grow, and scale their businesses globally, causing many founders to leave the province,” says Celina Philpot, CEO of Conexus Credit Union. “We are committed to growing the economic vitality of our province through our many offerings, including Cultivator powered by Conexus.”
“Agriculture is vital to our province, country, and the world,” says Director of Cultivator Laura Mock. “Our goal at Cultivator is to bring together innovators with ag producers to solve the biggest problems in the ag sector. Well done to all participants and congratulations to the winners.”
