Seven ideas for new tech-enabled solutions were pitched by CEWA students on Friday 30 November at the CEWA Entrepreneurship Program gala event supporting the Starlight Children’s Foundation.

Proposed start-ups were presented by students, in teams and individually, to a panel of judges including CEWA Director of Teaching and Learning Eileen Climo, CEWA Head of Digital Transformation Partnerships Tony Panetta and representatives from Starlight, Murdoch University, Curtin University, the City of Canning and the WA Information Technology and Telecommunications Alliance (WAITTA).

The audience gathered for the event at the South Perth Community Centre and included families and supporters, and representatives from the Perth start-up and technology business community and universities. Proceeds from tickets were donated to Starlight, along with a gift from each guest to be given to children in hospitals over the Advent season.

There was an impressive array of ideas put forward by students, addressing a diverse range of problems faced by different segments of WA’s community.

The Bespoke team from Servite College pitched a platform that allows teen girls searching for an outfit for their ball to connect with young designers seeking to build their business and design reputation.

Scratch Match was an app proposed by St Norbert College students, designed to allow teens to find casual sports matches without the stress of ongoing commitment.

A team of Seton Catholic College presented Collective Care, an app that would help families to share the responsibility of caring for their ageing family members responsibly, efficiently and fairly.

Millennium X was an app solution outlined by a St Norbert College student, intending to provide a platform to connect women in need of finding modest and religiously or culturally-specified clothing directly with designers and producers.

The Grizzly platform was put forward by another team from Servite College. This app would allow teens to rate lessons, request help directly after a lesson, and self-manage their learning journey with access to teacher notes, peer help & tutors, and also enable teachers to share lesson notes that have been favoured by students.

Convenient Kids was pitched by an Aquinas College student mindful of the hours spent driving by school parents. The proposed app would facilitate a car-pooling system connecting school families to help parents collectively manage drop-offs and pick-ups amidst busy schedules.

A third Servite team introduced Launch Box, their idea to help keep school canteen options affordable, nutritional and varied via a central kitchen and delivery process, while giving students and parents a new way to manage canteen orders directly.

File Wagon was a solution outlined by a team from St Norbert College, and proposed to streamline the workload of food truck and event food vendors with a pre-populating digital paperwork system to assist with licensing and compliance.

After deliberation by the judging panel and a People’s Choice vote, the winners were announced as:

• Launch Box and Millenium X – tied for People’s Choice
• Collective Care ­- WAITTA award to represent WA at the iAwards in Melbourne (Millenium X to go through to adult round as student creator finishes Year 12 in 2018)
• Collective Care – Just Start IT 2018 Trophy

As winners of the Just Start IT Trophy, the Collective Care team will be given the opportunity to bring their app to life and supported in their product’s launch.

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