2026 Sprint to Innovate: The Innovation Challenge
Sprint to Innovate: The Innovation Challenge powered by Canada Life brings together post-secondary students from varied disciplines such as technology, business, entrepreneurship, and more. All Manitoba Post Secondary Students are invited to participate. Students will learn about innovation while collaborating in a fun and exciting challenge to build a minimum viable prototype in two days.
We are pleased to announce that our next Sprint to Innovate: The Innovation Challenge is the weekend of January 30 to February 1! With our Networking and Training session on Thursday, January 29 at University of Manitoba.
We invite all companies to review our sponsorship and mentorship opportunities, and to consider submitting a business challenge; and for post-secondary students to consider participating.
HOW THE EVENT WORKS
Teams of 4 to 6 students will choose from available business challenges provided by industry. Students will then work together with support from mentors to create a solution, including developing a prototype to be presented to judges on the final day.
A prototype is a simple experimental model of the proposed product used to learn from. Prototypes range from low-fidelity (paper-based) prototypes that are used to explain concepts all the way to high-fidelity prototypes that have functional elements with more detail. Teams may consist of technology and business students.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
As an Organization
- Sponsor the event.
- Volunteer your time as a mentor.
- Provide us with a Business Challenge that your organization has by emailing ckubara@rrc.ca
As a Student
Students from any Manitoba post-secondary student may participate in a team at Sprint to Innovate. All students on the team should be available to participate throughout the event including:
- Orientation on Wednesday, January 21 (1 hour at 12:00 PM)
- Networking and Training event on Thursday, January 29 at University of Manitoba (evening)
- All assigned virtual meetings with Challenge Rep and Mentors
- For working on the project throughout the weekend
- Meetings and Presentations on Sunday, February 1 at RRC Polytech
Learn more about Sprint to Innovate at one of our Student Information Sessions:
- Information Session on Wednesday, December 10 at 12:00 PM Register to Attend
Form a team of 4 to 6 students and register your team at this link:
Sponsors
Thank you to our Title Sponsor Canada Life; Refreshment Sponsor Access Credit Union; and Event Sponsors CIPS MB, Riipen, Payworks; and supported by University of Manitoba.
Sponsorship Opportunities
SUNDAY NETWORK EVENT SPONSORSHIP – $2000
We are looking for a sponsor to provide $2000 to be our Sunday Network Event sponsor.
Your sponsorship would earn you:
- Recognition on Sunday, February 1 at our Networking Reception following the Final Presentations.
- Recognition on event materials, website and registration.
- Social media recognition
- The opportunity to be a mentor to a team throughout the weekend.
EVENT SPONSORSHIP – $1000
We are looking for sponsors to provide $1000
towards prize money to the winning teams.
Your $1,000 sponsorship would earn you:
- Recognition throughout the event
- Recognition on event materials
- Social media recognition
- The opportunity to be a mentor to a team
throughout the weekend.
Be a Mentor
We are looking for professionals to mentor one team throughout the Sprint to Innovate event weekend.
Mentors are asked to provide well-rounded support to their student team in the following area.
- Help the team establish and foster a positive
team environment - Provide ideation tips and tricks
- Advise on prototype development
- Advise on pitch preparation
- Review final pitch presentation and provide
advice - Be available for support throughout the weekend
Challenges
Student teams will be provided with a list of business challenges that they will have a choice between to work on.
CHALLENGE #1 – RIIPEN
How might we use technology and user experience techniques to develop deeper relationships and engagement with individual post-secondary students and post-secondary institutions as a whole to provide students with the best project-based learning and career opportunities.
CHALLENGE #2 – CANADA LIFE
Transforming Women’s Investment Capabilities
According to The Financial Alliance for Women, women’s relationship with wealth continues to be impaired. This is because of a focus on immediacy instead of long-term planning and a lack of connection with financial advisors. Mass market women are underserved by the asset management sector and lack confidence in long-term financial planning and investment skills.
Your task: Create a solution that helps develop mass market women’s investment capabilities. (B2B, B2B2C or B2C)
CHALLENGE #3 – CIPS MANITOBA
Organizations are overwhelmed by rapidly growing AI-related information but struggle to turn it into practical, trusted knowledge for their workforce. How might we design an AI-powered Knowledge Management System that helps organizations collect, organize, prioritize, and share AI knowledge in the right format, for the right people, at the right time—so they can build an AI-ready workforce.