WNT Ventures are pleased to announce the inaugural winner of the WNT Ventures prize of $20,000 in the University of Canterbury's Tech Jumpstart competition.

We wish to extend our sincere congratulations to Dr Aaron Marshall from the college of Chemical and Process Engineering for the project on "Rapid Electrochemical sensing of the chemical oxygen demand in wastewater". Dr Marshalls project shows excellent potential for commercialisation alongside the other winners from the 2016 competition.

Dr Marshall's idea developed largely from PhD projects which had been looking at electrochemical wastewater treatment. The current traditional method of testing chemical oxygen demand in wastewater involves a process that generates a lot of toxic waste and is both slow as well as labour intensive. Dr Marshall has developed a new sensor technology which will be rapid, simple and potentially more accurate than the traditional method. It will generate almost no harmful waste and use only minuscule amounts of chemical components.

The Tech Jumpstart competition is an annual event giving University of Canterbury staff a chance to transform their innovative ideas into reality with three $20,000 prizes to help with technology development and commercialisation support. As a Callaghan Innovation Technology Incubator, WNT Ventures saw the opportunity to be part of this event as complimentary to our goal of accelerating innovation and building global companies.

WNT Ventures CEO Carl Jones and BDM Amanda Gilbertson sat on the judging panel for the Tech Jumpstart Competition and were impressed by the calibre of the entries coming out of University of Canterbury including those not on the final shortlist.

WNT is excited about this developing relationship with University of Canterbury and we would like to congratulate all the participants in the competition alongside the winning technologies. We look forward to our continued involvement with this programme.