Two teams of post-secondary students were named winners of the Mayor’s Innovation Challenge after pitching innovative ideas to address challenges faced by the City of Kingston. They will now have four-month paid summer internships to implement those ideas.
The City of Kingston internship was awarded to Rediscover Kingston – Julia McPolin and David Kubik – who created an app enabling residents and visitors to “point their smartphones at a landmark or historical building and view additional information, photos or even a visual reconstruction aims to capture Kingston’s rich culture by using Augmented Reality to bridge the gap between our history and the future,” according to a release. The team will implement the project with a $10,000 budget and support from City staff.
The Queen’s Innovation Centre Summer Initiative internship, sponsored by the Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre, went to the Krown team members Jessie Xiong, Paul Yang and Albert Bui. Their project is a utilities application that “works to reduce household electricity use, creates electricity goals based on a standard set amount of people within households, and gives weekly rewards (like coupons) for staying under this threshold.” Krown will receive full stipends for the summer and up to $4,000 in seed capital to build a venture around their idea.
“We saw some really innovative pitches this year! Now we’re looking forward to seeing the winning ideas come to life through the internships awarded,” said Mayor Bryan Paterson. “Kingston is a community with both the talent and the creativity to develop city altering and world changing ideas. The Challenge is a unique opportunity to harness that talent to address municipal challenges while also providing students an opportunity to launch their careers.”
The Mayor’s Innovation Challenge was made possible through partnership and collaboration with Bell Canada and the Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre. A special thanks to the Venture Club and Loving Spoonful for partnering on this year’s challenge.
