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Innovative solutions to serious medical problems took four of six $10,000 prizes up for grabs when student teams competed via video this month in an annual pitch competition for startup companies. Three of the six winning teams consisted of nanotechnology students.

The new format, which replaced in-person presentations at the Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Awards for Capstone Design due to the coronavirus crisis, gave graduating students five minutes to explain their projects instead of the usual three minutes, followed by questions.

At theÌýÌý$5K Finals - formerly the Velocity Fund Finals - teams featuring nanotechnology engineering students took oneÌýof four $5,000 awards, plus the $500 People’s Champ prize, for students with business ideas.

Twenty-nine University of À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ researchers, including 4 science recipients, 3 of which are members of WIN,Ìýwill receive $3.4 million from the provincial government to further research innovation in Ontario.Ìý

John Yeow, aÌýWIN member andÌýsystems design engineering professor, is the newÌýÌýfor the IEEE Nanotechnology Technical Council (NTC).

Breakthroughs in technology and computing are changing the way researchers approach medicine. Early scientists wielded the revolutionary tools of their time, such as the microscope, to understand human health. Today, researchers increasingly use math as a microscope to understand biology and medicine, dictating the need for scientists to navigate between the worlds of computations and medicine comfortably.

WIN member Emmanuel Ho, anÌýassociate professor at the University of À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ School of Pharmacy and an international expert in nanomedicine, is developing a 3D-printed intra-vaginal ring (IVR) that would provide highly precise doses of medication to protect women from getting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS and kills one million people globally each year, according to UNAIDS.
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When he was a young boy growing up in Burkina Faso, Yannick Traore’s dad didn’t like to buy him toys. Yannick had a habit of taking things apart just to figure out how to put them back together. Even as a child, he needed to understand how things worked.

Today, Yannick’s putting that curiosity to good use as a PhD candidate in ProfessorÌýEmmanuel Ho’s lab.

The American Chemical Society recently published an editorial on "" which hightlightsÌýresearch breakthroughs in energy harvesting and storage technology areas published by WIN membersÌýin the past decade.

Teams with members from the nanotechnology engineering undergraduate program claimed one of the four $5,000 prizes on the line today at the latestÌýon-campus pitch competition for students with business ideas.

A medical technology startup co-founded by two nanotechnology students topped more than 100,000 applicants to takeÌýÌýand the $500,000 USD prize in an international competition staged in Saudi Arabia.

, which is based at the Velocity Garage in downtown Kitchener, won theÌýÌýfollowing a startup boot camp and several rounds of competition in Riyadh.