WATERLOO – Wilfrid Laurier University students and alumni won both the social entrepreneurship and general industry award categories at the recent 2009 LaunchPad $50K Venture Creation Competition.

Laurier alumni Mike Morrice, with support from team members Micaela Buchnea-Chew and Kyle Pinto, took first place in the social entrepreneurship stream for their new venture creation Sustainable Waterloo. A not-for-profit organization, Sustainable Waterloo helps corporations in Waterloo Region become environmentally sustainable by facilitating collaboration between industry, local government, academia, and non-governmental organizations. The company is currently running The Regional Carbon Initiative, which is designed to create a measurable and realistic CO2 reduction target framework for local organizations.

Additionally, two Laurier MBA candidates tied for first place in the general industry stream of the competition. Created by student Sean Sinclair, Ethos Cycles is a high-performance mountain bike company that designs and manufactures its products in Canada. SCImed, is a startup business created and developed by student Michael Johnson that specializes in the online sale of specific medical products required by people who have sustained spinal cord injuries.

“Increasingly, Laurier students are becoming renowned for their entrepreneurial know-how and real-world business savvy,” said Laurier dean of Business and Economics, Ginny Dybenko. “I am so pleased about our student’s accomplishments and I wish them well in their future endeavors.”

The technology category in the competition was claimed by a group of students from the University of Waterloo. 2G Robotics was developed by Melissa Upjohn, Stephanie Hecimovich, and Alison Carere, who developed the world’s first underwater laser scanner. The ULS-100 utilizes laser imaging to create quantifiable three-dimensional pictures of underwater objects and surroundings for inland and offshore marine asset inspection.

Founded in 2004, the LaunchPad $50K Venture Creation Competition is jointly presented by Wilfrid Laurier University, University of Waterloo, University of Guelph, Conestoga College, McMaster University and community entrepreneurs. The competition is designed to encourage and support the creation and development of local businesses. Finalists compete to win a combined total of $50,000 in cash prizes and in-kind services.

“It has been a wonderful experience for me to watch these students develop their business plans into something concrete and viable,” said Steve Farlow, executive director of Laurier’s Schlegel Centre for Entrepreneurship.

The Laurier School of Business & Economics launched its Innovation & Entrepreneurship MBA program in spring 2007. The program, which enables students to start their own business while earning an MBA degree, has since grown to include over 14 participants.