First-Year UNB Students Earn Multiple Awards At Apex Competition
“Each of us has that creative side to us,” says Rukeme Akalusi.
Akalusi and her teammates were some of the winners at the University of New Brunswick’s Apex competition in January.
Akalusi says the competition gave her the experience of a lifetime: to find an idea she and her teammates were passionate about and to convince others to get excited about it too.
“That experience of going through the competition is the reward in itself,” Akalusi says. “If you get something else, it’s kind of like the icing on the cake.”
The two-day business competition attracts participants from across Canada and around the world; this year that included students from Texas, Benin, and Ghana.
Akalusi and her teammates, Skylar Soh and Leen Abu Al-Sha’r, won $500 from the BAUS Business Planning and Entrepreneurship Award, which goes to the best business project for a team from the UNB Business Planning and Entrepreneurship course.
They were one of just 29 teams to participate in the competition, which saw more than $30,000 awarded to graduate, undergraduate, and non-student entrepreneur competitors.
The competition received a boost in January with renewed sponsorship from BMO. The bank gifted $2 million to the university to support student achievement in entrepreneurship; $500,000 of the gift will sponsor the Apex Business Plan Competition for 10 years, continuing UNB’s proud partnership with BMO in recognizing entrepreneurial excellence, with another $500,000 invested to create the BMO Emerging Entrepreneur Awards, which will be available to both UNB campuses and all programs.
The remaining $1 million will help maintain the BMO Centre soccer pitch at UNB, reflecting BMO’s position as the Bank of Soccer and commitment to growing the game of soccer throughout North America.
Akalusi says working with her team on their product, Otium, helped her “tap into that creativity” and learn that maybe she does have entrepreneurial potential after all.
Akalusi didn’t even set out to create a product when she began her undergraduate studies in September. But participating in in the first year Business Plan and Entrepreneurship course, with a focus on experiential learning, gave her a different perspective.
“Entrepreneurship is not all about the product. You can be an investor, you can network, you can be on boards,” she says.
“It’s pretty competitive,” says Ryan Reid, the program officer at UNB’s International Business and Entrepreneurship Centre. “It’s pretty impressive that first-year students won second place.”
Just like in the real world, the competition was impacted by the weather, so Akalusi got another lesson in business: how to adapt quickly.
“We get to the week of the competition and we’re gearing up. We’re super excited,” she recalls. “And then the snowstorm’s coming so they moved it online. And it’s so weird because we feed so much off each other, emotion wise. The fact that we wouldn’t be there in person, just on a screen, was really strange.”
“It was crazy that morning but we did the presentation. We were happy with it.”
So were the judges. In addition to winning the BAUS Business Planning and Entrepreneurship Award, Otium also won second place in the elevator pitch contest.
The idea was a product that would make charging digital devices easier. Without giving too much away, the idea was great and inspired the unusual team name.
“That’s how Otium came about. It’s Latin for ‘ease’, and basically what we’re trying to do is ease the process of charging digital devices,” Akalusi says.
Reid says one of the big pieces of experiential learning the students undertake is getting feedback from a panel of mentors and judges. It’s an experience that not only provides valuable advice but is also a networking opportunity.
“We have judges assessing these teams from the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, Opportunities New Brunswick, EY Enrst & Young, BMO Bank of Montreal. Even if a team doesn’t win, you can make great connections that could help you to the next step,” he says.
One of those connections was Phil Curley, the founder of Hotspot (and a former Apex winner), who was keynote speaker at the Awards Dinner. He spoke about his 10-year experience building Hotspot into a leader across Canada offering municipal parking management software systems.
“So, when we got to the finals, we got to talk to a lot of people in the business world — like people from Planet hatch,” agrees Akalusi. “It was a really great place to network.”
One judge gave some great advice about their presentation, as well as their product.
“She told us one thing that we struggled with was eye contact. So, we had this idea we were very passionate about, and it was in our voice but when you’re not looking at someone it’s kind of hard for them to grasp.”
“She also talked about just having confidence. Even though our product is capital-heavy, it’s still an idea we want to do because it fixes something that we struggle with every day,” Akalusi says. “Confidence in yourself, and that you’ve done the research, you’ve done all the work.”
The experience of coming up with an idea, forming a plan, and following through with a presentation to a panel of judges may have been a lot of work, but the experience was valuable for Akalusi.
“Everyone should participate in APEX, whether you have an idea for how to unstick gum from your hair, or whatever your idea might be. It’s a great place to share your ideas and people can actually critique them … and help you understand who you are in the business world.”
This story is sponsored by the University of New Brunswick’s Faculty of Business.