Additional Prize Added to the Mayor’s Innovation Challenge

Published on: 2018/02/15 - in News

Mayor's Innovation Challenge

The City of Kingston has announced that Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre (DDQIC) is now sponsoring an additional prize for the 2018 Mayor’s Innovation Challenge, where teams of post-secondary students are vying for the chance to have a 16-week paid internship with the City to implement their project idea.

UPDATE: The winners have been announced! See embedded Twitter posts at the bottom

Sponsored by DDQIC, the winners will now also receive a $7,000 stipend per team member for the summer, $4,000 in seed capital for the idea, and
access to the entire summer’s Queen’s Innovation Centre Summer Initiative (QICSI 2018) programming to accelerate their innovation.

“I’m so thrilled that we’ve partnered with Queen’s University and the DDQIC to offer another prize for students as part of the Mayor’s Innovation Challenge,” said Mayor Bryan Paterson in a release. “We have a great relationship with Queen’s and we both want to help launch our post-secondary students into the workforce by providing paid opportunities to help build their skills and experience. It’s amazing that we will now be able to award two teams with truly unique and potentially life-changing summer experiences.”

Benoit-Antoine Bacon, provost and vice principal (academic), Queen’s University said that modern cities “need to consistently innovate to improve the lives of their citizens, and modern universities are always looking for ways to enhance and support their communities. In that spirit, Queen’s is very proud to support the Mayor’s Innovation Challenge and to work in partnership with the City to leverage the innovative talents of Kingston’s citizens to address real municipal issues.”

Members of the public are invited to attend the pitch competition on Friday, March 2 between 9:30am and 12pm when students will be pitching their ideas to judges in Council Chambers at City Hall.

The City will also be hosting a networking lunch with the students from noon to 12:45pm in Memorial Hall while the judges deliberate. The winners’ names are expected to be announced at around 12:45pm.

Register to attend the pitch competition here


March 2nd, 2018 update: