After 54 hours of brainstorming, building and pitching, Vello was crowned the winner of Startup Weekend Toronto: Internet of Things Edition this past Sunday. Vello impressed the event’s judges, which included Karl Martin, CEO and co-founder of Bionym, and Matthew Leibowitz of Plaza Ventures, with its pitch for a honeycomb-shaped smart vent to control home temperatures via an iPhone app. StoveAlert, a smart device to detect stovetop temperatures and prevent injuries, took second, while myMouse, an ergonomic computer mouse custom-built for each individual user, took third.
The IoT edition of Startup Weekend Toronto was just one of the 250 events taking place during Global Entrepreneurship Week. The teams chosen Sunday will now compete internationally as part of the Global Startup Battle for a chance to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Milan, as well as LAUNCH in San Francisco.
Canadian teams have won the Global Startup Battle the past two years, and in a statement given to BetaKit, Startup Weekend Toronto organizer Heather Simmonds seemed confident in the chances of this year’s crop.
“I’m consistently impressed with the level of talent in the city,” she said. “Startup Weekend has a great track record of launching amazing companies in Toronto and this event was no exception. Our participants, mentors and sponsors have all demonstrated that Toronto is a hotbed of talented when it comes to Internet of Things innovation.”