A team of Sauder business and senior UBC engineering students originating from the Sauder course New Venture Design won the national Pacific Venture Capital Competition(PVCC) with their product, the Ventilated Door.
PVCC is the only venture capital competition for undergraduates in Canada, hosted annually by the UBC Finance Club.
The UBC team, VanAir Solutions, beat out students from across Canada with their Ventilated Door and earned a $2,000 grand prize. The team consists of BCom students Vicking Yau (General Business), Douglas Lam (Marketing) and Braden Parker (Real Estate) and engineering students Jesse Neufeld, James Higgins and Nicholas Petch.
The product, which allows air to continually flow between doors while remaining closed, was designed in Sauder's New Venture Design course (COMM 466). The course pairs commerce and upper-level engineering students, who are tasked with solving a real-world problem with a commercial venture idea.
Student teams who advanced to the final round of the PVCC were assigned a mentor to assist with their business plan and presentation. “The mentor assigned to us, Akbar Hassanally, Founder and Managing Director of Mondo Capital Partners, gave us tremendous help and has agreed to be our mentor outside the competition,” says BCom student Douglas Lam.
SoundIT, another team from the New Venture Design course, placed second with their mobile app. The product gives customers the ability to select and listen to their own songs at their favorite bars and pubs. It was created by BCom students Sonal Haria, Douglas Cheung and Eric Seto, and engineering students Anuj Mehta, Nick Adams and Samuel Chan.
A third team from New Venture Design, TrueForm Innovations, participated in the PVCC with their product RadiLift, a vertically rotating dishwasher rack. The team consists of BCom students Jonathan Fung, Mei Chi Ng and Rebecca Wu, and engineering students Gary Tse, Hason Ton and Robert Young.
Photo credit: Phillippe Kruchten.
