PlanIt

planit

Got a winning idea? We're giving away cash to support it.

You're welcome to submit a full business plan or a business canvas with a 3-5 page executive summary. Need to include graphs, images or additional data? That's fine! You can have an appendix to support your summary that addresses and expands on the questions on the canvas. Applicants or teams must put due diligence and effort into their submission and address all questions on the canvas template to be considered.

Upcoming Application Deadline: August 2nd, 2024 - 10:00 AM 

Upcoming PlanIt Competition: August 7th, 2024 - 10:00 AM

Note: The competition is now online, and presenters have the opportunity to network with and learn from each other! We recommend planning ahead by orienting yourself with Zoom. Those selected to present will receive a Zoom link and further instructions the day before the competition. Best of luck!

Who can enter

To participate, you must meet the following criteria:

  • Submissions can be from an individual or a team. Your team can be cross-faculty and have a maximum of five people. Your team may include members who are not current students, but the Team Lead must be a current UVic student (undergraduate or graduate level), faculty/staff member or recent UVic alumni. All participants must have a Social Insurance Number to compete.
  • Students are able to compete in PlanIt more than once if the business plan or canvas is substantially improved or the business has pivoted between submissions. You will need to demonstrate that you have used the previous prize money (if applicable) effectively, and you will be held to the standard of what your plan or canvas is for the next phase of development. You will also need to indicate in your submission that you have competed previously.

Submit your business plan or canvas/model and executive summary to be considered for the competition. If considered viable, your team will be asked to present your business plan or canvas/model to a team of experts (typically the screening committee will choose the six strongest business plans). All presentations will require a pitch deck and will be approximately 15 minutes in length, with a question and answer period with the judges after the presentation.

How to submit

Submit by email to icpoc@uvic.ca the following information. In the body of your email, please indicate:

  • Team Lead Name (last, first), mailing address, email, faculty, department, year of study (or indicate year convocated) 
  • Team Member Name (last, first), mailing address, email, faculty, department, year of study (or indicate year convocated) 
  • Name of venture idea
  • Summary of venture idea (3-5 sentences)
  • Please indicate availability or potential scheduling conflicts for the presentation day.
  • Please indicate if you have competed in PlanIt previously (students are permitted to enter twice and third time by special permission).
  • Attach your submission in PDF format to your registration email and submit by the registration deadline.

After the screening committee has reviewed your business plan or canvas, we will be in contact with the team lead by email.

If your business plan or canvas is selected as a finalist, we will also inform you of a scheduled time for the PlanIt presentation to the external judging panel on presentation day. Presentations are during normal business hours.

What to submit

Here's what we want to see. You can choose to submit a business plan or a lean business canvas/model with an executive summary. 

Business Plan Submission

Your submission should be by email (including the registration info requested on the "How to submit" tab in the body of your email) and be in one attached pdf document with supporting charts, graphs or images embedded.

OR

Business Canvas and Executive Summary Submission

Your submission should be by email (including the registration info requested on the "How to submit" tab in the body of your email) and be in one attached pdf document with supporting charts, graphs or images embedded.

Judging

Criteria

What do judges look for in a plan? The judges consider many different issues when evaluating executive summaries and business plans, including:

  • Is the business opportunity as presented both highly attractive and clearly realistic?
  • Is the business defensible from competitors?
  • What is the business model?
  • What comparisons are there to past success stories that indicate this venture will succeed?
  • What is the amount of up-front capital investment required?
  • Do the market and financial projections demonstrate that the team understands its business?
  • How long will it take from the current stage of development to bring this to market?
  • Can this venture achieve a leadership position in its market?
  • Has the team already gone out to the market to test its ideas? Who will be the first customer(s)?
  • Is the team of sufficient breadth, balance and quality to make its ideas happen?
  • Is the team focused on its target market? What is the expected time and amount of pay-off to investors?
  • Is the plan clear and well-written?
  • Does the team have the necessary communication skills to present a compelling story?
  • What roles will the team members play in the venture?
  • Are the team members dedicated to the venture and their roles in the group?
  • Does the team have a clear plan for spending the investment money it receives?
  • Why is this business going to be around, and a real world winner, in five years?
  • Does the plan and the team promoting it have the entrepreneurial spirit to succeed?


Congratulations to our past winners:

PlanIt - April 10, 2024 

  • Happy Prime (Aanchan Mohan and Monideep Chokraborti) - $3000
  • Newport Capital (Matthew Sparrow) - $2000
  • Hanzsemble (Hong-Chuan Yang and Jinke Jiang) - $1000
  • GIVR (Sean Webster) - $1000
  • StudentHaus (Julian Wells, Aaron Cohen, Jonathan Cook, Fawzan Hussein, Grace Murphy) - $1000

PlanIt - December 6, 2023 

  • Revyn Medical Technologies (McCormick, Keeley & Samantha Sperling) - $3000
  • Ocean AID (Andrew Polanyi) - $2000
  • Nebulab (Juan Giraldo) - $1000
  • Aerial Firefighting Technology (Greg Booth) - $1000
  • Beirm Bio (Ryan Suleman) - $1000

PlanIt - August 17, 2023

  • Intellectulogy (Samira Soltani) - $3000
  • Booking Buddy (Bryce Edwards) - $2000
  • Salyx (Elaine De la Cruz) - $1500
  • Rizado (Valeria del Valle) - $1000
  • AIGreening (Yussuf Reza) - $1000

PlanIt - April 13, 2023

  • RAM (Toby Murray) - $3000
  • Inkblot Games (Athena Abbott) - $2000
  • 2nd Scan (Yulie Yu) - $1000
  • Sutunary (Sutunary) - $1000
  • Jordan Morford (Tappen Apothecary) - $1000

PlanIt - Dec. 8th, 2022

  • PlanetteInc (Hansi Singh) - $3000
  • Conju.ai (Bryce Edwards) - $2000
  • Azor (Brock Schuman) - $1000
  • HAIMS (Christine Wong Chong) - $1000
  • Benny (Paige Cey) - $1000
  • XpressOat (Tal Katz) - $1000

 PlanIt - Aug. 18, 2022

  • Growler Grounds Coffee Co (Ashley Martin) - $2000
  • Grasp (Matteo Sotelo) - $2000
  • Guasaca with Los Panas Kitchen (Nicolas Jimenez) - $2000
  • Farmer's Legacy Biotech (Pankaj Purwar) - $2000

PlanIt - April 13, 2022

  • Apricell (Matt Sutherland) - $4000
  • Little Egg (Jennifer Cawthorne) - $2500
  • Walk with Masami (Masami Teramachi) $1500

PlanIt - December 8, 2021

  • MeepMeep (Eve Olynyk and Simon Park) - $3000
  • ScoutBees (Gaze del Castillo) - $2500
  • PolyV (Tong Li) - $1250
  • Sanctuary Sneakers (Jason Thomo and Eric Hasegawa) - $1250

PlanIt - August 18, 2021

  • Bug Bites (Danielle Lowe) - $3000
  • Geti Cosmetics (Ashley Whetung) - $2500
  • Lawyer Central (Jason Fitzpatrick) - $1500
  • Apricell Biotechnologies (Amir Seyfoori) - $1000

PlanIt - April 14, 2021

  • Triden Solutions (Rochelle Mueller and Derek Douglas) - $3000
  • PolyV (Tong Li) - $1700
  • Justo's Dips (Justin Kopetzki, Tyler Hosie, Adam Conlin) - $1700
  • CargoSprout (Wei Chou and Firat Nurozler) - $1700

PlanIt - December 11, 2020

  • Solaires (Sahar Sam) - $2000
  • MeepMeep (Eve Olynyk) - $2000
  • Simply You (Salena Dhillon) - $2000
  • VoxCell BioInnovation (Karolina Papera Valente) - $2000

PlanIt - August 13, 2020

  • Castofly (Iman Moazzen and Ishpreet Brar) - $3000
  • Nutsie (Maria Orrego) - $2500
  • Solar Venture (Sahar Sam, Carolina Betancourt and Adam Bruce) - $1500
  • Cargo Sprout (Wei Chou) - $1000

PlanIt - April 3, 2020

  • MOSY (Leslie Cieza Huane and Rossmery Atarama Lopez) - $3000
  • DivDot (Matthew Smith, Nick Addison and James Davidson) - $2000
  • BinBreeze (Taylor McCarten) - $2000
  • DP Labs (Ryan Warner, Nathan Muller, Brent Godau, Tom Kirk and James Davidson) - $500
  • Justo's Hummus and Dips (Adam Conlin, Justin Kopetzki and Eric Taccogna) - $500

PlanIt - December 6, 2019

  • ThinkInk (Stephanie Willerth) - $3000
  • Sheer Simple (Jayesh Vekariya) - $1500
  • Sister Sister (Katie Forshner) - $1500
  • Keltsmaht Kelp (Jordan White) - $1000
  • Kraken (Eduard Wisernig) - $1000

PlanIt - April 12, 2019

  • Nature Bee Beeswax Wraps (Katie Gamble) - $2500
  • LetHub (Faizan Ali Khan) - $2000
  • Focal (Lachlan Shum) - $2000
  • LiveIt (Mike Irvine) - $1000
  • Opportunities for African Girls (Tari Murwira) Social Innovation Prize - $500

PlanIt - December 7, 2018

  • LevelUp Learning (Matthew Riddett) - $4000 
  • Nature Bee Beeswax Wraps (Katie Gamble) - $1000
  • LiveIt (Mike Irvine) - $1000
  • Shoppinglee (Dara Jarallah and Joy Singh) - $1000
  • Vissid Coffee (Alex Tardif) - $1000

PlanIt - August 3, 2018

  • Focus Time (Vlad Lyesin and Curtis Upshall) - $4000
  • BringIt (Miaoxin Cui, Henrika Lim, Chris Mah) - $3000
  • Hooplight (Joey Erlic) - $1000
  • Sonadus (Matt McCann, Ryan Cooper, Derek Mathewson, Warren Marriott) Ideate 2018 Prize - $5000

PlanIt - April 6, 2018

  • Sepurator (Victor Nicolov) - $5000 
  • Caboost (Simon Park) - $2000
  • Nyoka Light Wand (Paige Whitehead) - $1000

PlanIt - Novembe 23, 2017

  • Pani Energy (Devesh Bharadwaj and Ryan Jmaeff) Sustainability and Social Innovation Prize - $2000 
  • Loopin (Bodie Elliott) - $2000
  • Cuboh (Juan Orrego) - $2000
  • Soundskrit (Iman Moazzen) - $1000
  • DivDot (Matthew Smith) - $500
  • FAERI (Kurt Fairfield) - $500

PlantIt - July 28, 2017

  • IMT (Harsh Rathod, Rishi Gupta) - $4000
  • BnBreeze (Jesal Shah, Abhinav Rai, Andrew Spence) - $2000
  • Kokomo (Ashton Meuser) - $1000
  • Liefbase (Joe Czepil, Konrad Schultz, Jonah Rankin, Cam Long, Dustin Bolink) - Social Innovation Prize - $1000

PlanIt - April 6, 2017

  • CrowdZero (Geige Vandentop, Dan Briggs, Alex Glassey)  - $2500
  • Fest Hut (Logan Gibson, Robbie Lacis) - $2500 
  • Abstractia (Buyun Xu) - $1500
  • Heartrate Monitor (Xiaodai Dong and Gerrit Van Rensburg) - $1500

PlanIt - November 23, 2016

  • BioM3d (Tim Thomson and Kailey Allan) - $4,000
  • Inspado (Khaled Gabr and Genie Guo) - $2000
  • Abstractia (Buyun Xu) - $1000
  • Social Innovation and Sustainability award - BioM3d (Tim Thomson and Kailey Allan) - $1000

PlanIt - August 4, 2016

  • ethreeone (Brina Martens) - $4,000
  • Sound Signal (Adam Bender and Bryce Flug) - $2000
  • Batiqua (Linda Makaza) - $1000
  • Social Innovation and Sustainability award - Batiqua (Linda Makaza) - $1000

PlanIt - August 5, 2015

  • Concrete Garden Magazine (Quinn MacDonald) - $4,000
  • TravelMetrics.co (Bhupinder Dulku) - $3,000
  • *This team has chosen not to be named* - $2000
  • Reciprocate (Kelly Loudoun, Samarth Mod, Rohit Boolchandri) - $500

PlanIt - April 1, 2015

  • TOPSOIL (Chris Hildreth) - $6,000
  • Giosa Technologies (Angela Rosa and Daniel Giam) - $3,500

PlanIt - December 5, 2014

  • nutTea energy bars (Mayank Chauhan) - $5,000
  • AirSenze (Samarth Mod) - $3,500

PlanIt - August 6, 2014

  • RapidSight (Stephen Murphy, Adam Bender, Bryce Flug) - $5,500
  • Calorie Thief (Rebecca Staynor) - $3,000
  • Dimes Underwear (Max Webster, Zac White, Patrick Psotka) - $1,000