Carleton Innovation Jam

On Tuesday I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in the Carleton Innovation Jam. This was an event hosted by the Student Energy club at Carleton University and was open to all students.

The event consisted of a keynote speech from the mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson, and then participants were asked to come up and pitch their ideas for the group to work on. Step3 was invited to set up a table displaying their products, and we had the opportunity to speak to Mayor Watson for a few minutes. As the evening progressed into the pitching phase, there were only four pitches so Step3 was invited to pitch our business plan. From there the rest of the attendants were able to split off and work with whichever pitch they believed in.

I got to work with an awesome group; Logan Haupt, Sean Mitchinson, Quinn McKinney and Beatrice Longo. The idea of the group work was to create a short pitch to entice the judges into giving your group the top prize of $1000. Our group started right from the roots of Step3; delving into why we thought it was a good idea, what message we wanted to send and what our goals were. We came up with the mission statement "Step3 is providing consumers with an opportunity to invest in renewable energy infrastructure through the purchase of apparel". In addition they helped come up with many great ideas for growth including using recycled old clothes, setting up phone charging stations in public areas, partner with student club apparel and help out shelters and humane societies.

When it came time to pitch to the judges, we decided upon a short and concise model. This consisted of a short background of what the project has already done, our mission statement, the target demographic and a three step process for the growth of the company.

That process was:

1) Grow a customer base and establish credibility through completing projects

2) Expand to larger scale projects and begin manufacturing our own sustainable apparel

3) Move into multi-national projects and scale manufacturing

The judges listened to all the pitches and then spent some time deciding the winners.

In third place they chose an online marketing campaign, second was a bicycle repair and rent idea for the Carleton Campus and then finally they announced the winner... STEP3PROJECT!

The judges explained the reason for chosing us was because we were in the best position to make use of the money right away and give back to the world. We are looking forward to using the money from the prize to complete another project at the beginning of this summer in Terrace, BC so stay tuned!

Another great outcome was being able to meet the judges. They all had some great advice for moving forward and one of them- Matt Britt owns a solar company in Ottawa as well as a charity. There has already been discussion on a partnership to allow us to give back to Ottawa and internationally!

It was a great event and I'd personally like to thank Carleton Student Energy for putting it on and thank you to all the judges for believing in Step3!