New Enterprise Growth instructors and UNCL crew members pose with their winnings on the Ivey Enterprise Plan Competitors in Ontario, Canada. From left: David Hinton, Michael Burton, Clayton Woodruff, Payton Lenz and Sarah Goforth.
A graduate scholar entrepreneurship crew from the U of A received first place in Canada’s prestigious Ivey Enterprise Plan Competitors, securing $20,000 to place towards their modern answer of deterring bicycle theft with out the necessity for a motorcycle lock.
UNCL Co., quick for Common Community Managed Lock, is an app-enabled safety system that retrofits to public bike racks, permitting riders to safe and monitor their bike with out the burden of carrying a heavy lock.
UNCL is the third U of A crew to win the competitors, held this yr from Jan. 20-21 on the Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship on the College of Western Ontario. Earlier U of A winners embody Studying DifferentiatED and Picasolar in 2012 and 2013, respectively.
UNCL emerged from the New Enterprise Growth course sequence within the Sam M. Walton Faculty of Enterprise. The crew fashioned when the 4 co-founders met within the NVD class, the place CEO Michael Burton recruited them to work on his thought for a micromobility safety answer, stated Sarah Goforth, govt director of the Workplace of Entrepreneurship of Innovation.
The opposite founders are Chris Roderick, Payton Lenz and Clayton Woodruff, all govt M.B.A. college students.
A year-long, hands-on enterprise incubation program for graduate college students, NVD permits college students to pursue a startup thought in a hands-on, team-based surroundings. The programs represent the entrepreneurship monitor of the full-time Grasp of Enterprise Administration and govt M.B.A. applications. Non-business college students take part within the programs by pursuing the graduate certificates in entrepreneurship.
“Some college students enter the New Enterprise Growth program with an curiosity in entrepreneurship however no specific thought, whereas others have a back-of-the-napkin idea or early-stage expertise they’re enthusiastic about exploring,” stated Goforth, who oversees this system and teaches the programs alongside David Hinton, affiliate director of Know-how Ventures.
“Michael joins a handful of scholars we have labored with over the previous few years who arrived on day one with a passionate dedication to resolve an issue that he had skilled personally as an avid bike owner,” Goforth stated.
“That zeal for the issue, shared throughout a hard-working and proficient crew of co-founders, is what competitors judges — and real-world buyers and enterprise companions — search for.”
These experiences in NVD have been “very important” to UNCL’s success in Canada, in response to Burton.
“NVD compelled us to grow to be intimate with the ‘ache’ and empathize with our clients earlier than making a product,” Burton stated. “Novelty and innovation are meaningless if they don’t seem to be fixing the fitting drawback for the individuals experiencing it.”
UNCL plans to make use of its funding to finalize a digital protype and progress to its minimal viable product, Burton stated.
“Renderings are nice, however the money will deliver our system to life,” Burton stated.
After creating their preliminary enterprise mannequin over the course of the autumn semester, UNCL utilized to and was admitted into the Greenhouse Out of doors Recreation Program (GORP), OEI’s flagship enterprise incubation program. UNCL is the primary NVD crew to be accepted into the incubator. UNCL joins 4 different biking firms, and one other geared towards rock-climbing, in GORP’s Spring 2023 cohort.
Successful the competitors in Canada has solely “added gas to our already burning flame,” Burton stated.
Concerning the U of A Workplace of Entrepreneurship and Innovation: The Workplace of Entrepreneurship and Innovation creates and curates innovation and entrepreneurship experiences for college students throughout all disciplines. By means of the Brewer Household Entrepreneurship Hub, McMillon Innovation Studio, Startup Village, and Greenhouse on the Bentonville Collaborative, the Workplace of Entrepreneurship and Innovation offers free workshops and applications — together with social and company innovation design groups, enterprise internships, competitions and startup teaching. A unit of the Sam M. Walton Faculty of Enterprise and Division of Financial Growth, the Workplace of Entrepreneurship and Innovation additionally provides on-demand help for college students who might be innovators inside current organizations and entrepreneurs who begin one thing new.