Telegraph Journal Reports Breakthru 2013 Winner

By Shawn Berry, Telegraph Journal | link to original article (subscribers only)

Two Fredericton brothers have won a $100,000 investment in their fledgling company after taking home the grand prize at this year's Breakthru competition after developing an application that lets a smartphone detect what streets need repair work.

TotalPave, the brainchild of Coady and Drew Cameron, will benefit from the investment by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, along with professional services like legal advice from Cox & Palmer, financial advice from Deloitte Canada and marketing and branding support from Orange Sprocket. The winners were announced at a gala dinner and awards ceremony at the Delta Fredericton on Wednesday evening before an audience of more than 400.

The runners up – Store it Squirrel and Black Magic – will receive a $50,000 investment as well as professional support services. Calvin Milbury, president and CEO of the NBIF and a member of the selection committee for the award, said judges had a tough time choosing among the five finalists. But Milbury said TotalPave's pitch stood out.

“They've developed a solution that uses mobile phone technology to monitor roads. Based on that technology, they can get an early warning on what streets need repair. “And if those repairs can be done before potholes appear, that can save municipalities a great deal of money.” “There is existing technology out there, but nothing as innovative as this. We thought it was a new, disruptive way of tackling the market.” Milbury said the fact the Cameron brothers already have a prototype and have been out talking to municipalities about the project was an advantage.

The Cameron brothers, both masters' degree students, feel they're solving a problem that plagues municipalities. They say existing instruments to collect and analyze the condition of streets are pricey and rarely updatable. In addition, the process is cumbersome because it's generally done with an “instrumented vehicle,” reducing the speed at which the job can get done.

“We're picking up this objective data with a smartphone mounted in a vehicle,” said Coady, who is completing his master's degree in transportation engineering. “You can imagine how much less it will cost to throw a smartphone in your car and go. Now a lot of municipalities can't afford these services, so they're doing this 'worst-first' paving. They can't efficiently manage their roads without this kind of data. It allows them to make knowledge-based decisions,” Coady said in an interview published earlier this week.

A total of 47 companies entered the competition this year, and 88 entrepreneurs took part.

Jill Green, CEO and a founder of Green Imaging Technologies, served on the selection committee said it's encouraging to see the amount of innovation in New Brunswick.

“It's exciting. I have my own business, and knowing that there are all these people out there with these great ideas and wanting to develop these ideas into something fantastic and take it to the world makes it a great place to do business,” she said.

“It was a very tough decision this year. It was really hard.

“It took us a long time to come to a consensus on the winning team. I think that's because they were all so good this year.” The two runners up are Store it Squirrel, created by Saint John entrepreneur Mikeal Abramoff to connect people who have extra space with people who need place to store things; and Black Magic, run by UNB engineering students Greg Bailey, Stephen Likely and Garrett Nelson, who are selling a nontoxic, heavy-duty hand cleaner.

The other finalists are Cetex, by Nathan and Greg Armstrong, which is developing commercial wastewater treatment systems; and RTV, founded by James Stewart, Stephen Goddard and Keith Dunphy, which uses a system that analyzes police data to catch repeat impaired drivers.

Milbury says the slate of finalists is so strong he wouldn't be surprised if NBIF eventually invests in all five of the finalists.

“There's a lot of potential in those companies, and it's likely we'll be working with them to first provide them with constructive feedback and hopefully work with them to get their companies launched as well.” For instance, he said, one of the finalists that didn't walk away a winner two years ago was CyberPsyc Software.

The Fredericton company that develops and markets virtual reality software to treat phobias and anxieties continued to refine its business plan and went on to get a $100,000 investment from the NBIF and another $150,000 from other angel investors.