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Building on the strong partnership between the City of Kingston and Queen’s University, the Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre (DDQIC) has stepped forward to sponsor an additional prize for the 2018 Mayor’s Innovation Challenge.

“Modern cities need to consistently innovate to improve the lives of their citizens, and modern universities are always looking for ways to enhance and support their communities," said Benoit-Antoine Bacon, Provost and Vice-Principal (Academic). "In that spirit, Queen’s is very proud to support the Mayor’s Innovation Challenge and to work in partnership with the City to leverage the innovative talents of Kingston’s citizens to address real municipal issues.".

In addition to the opportunity to be awarded a 16-week paid internship with the City to implement their project idea, competing teams of post-secondary students will now also have an opportunity, sponsored by the DDQIC, to receive:

• a $7,000 stipend per team member for the summer,
• $4,000 in seed capital for the idea, and
• access to the entire summer's Queen’s Innovation Centre Summer Initiative (QICSI 2018) programming to accelerate their innovation.

This exciting partnership will create additional opportunities for career development and employment for youth, and facilitate an additional innovative municipal project to be implemented.

“I’m so thrilled that we’ve partnered with Queen’s University and the DDQIC to offer another prize for students as part of the Mayor’s Innovation Challenge,” said Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson. “We have a great relationship with Queen’s and we both want to help launch our post-secondary students into the workforce by providing paid opportunities to help build their skills and experience. It’s amazing that we will now be able to award two teams with truly unique and potentially life-changing summer experiences.”

The Mayor's Innovation Challenge pitch competition will be held Friday, March 2 between 9:30 am and 12 pm in the Council Chambers at City Hall. The big reveal of the winning teams is expected to take place around 12:45 pm that day.

For more information on the challenge, visit the .