Maple Ridge’s inaugural Innovation Challenge brings out three winners

City of Maple Ridge’s inaugural Innovation Challenge award winners were announced this week during the council meeting.

The first place award winner for the challenge was declared as Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows Katzie Seniors Network, who is set to receive the grand prize of $3,000, as well as a small trophy to put up at their business, and a plaque to put up in city hall with spaces for future innovators.

The second place winner was Big Feast Bistro + Retail, who will be receiving $2,500 and third place winner is the Ridge Meadows Salvation Army, who will be receiving $1,000.

Amelia Norrie of the Salvation Army, expressed her happiness over the win to The News and said, “We’d like to thank the City of Maple Ridge for giving us an opportunity to put forward our idea. This puts us one step closer to creating innovative opportunities for our Community.”

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In fourth place, Fraser North Farmers Market Society will get a 360 degrees, fifth place Verus Valuations will get an underwater camera and in sixth place, Howsby.com will receive a bluetooth speaker.

In a social media post, the city said, “The wide breadth and impressive caliber of projects that were submitted for this Innovation Challenge were truly inspiring. It is wonderful indication that the citizens and business owners of Maple Ridge are pushing the envelope in their business sectors and are striving to better their community.”

Back in June this year, the innovation challenge was unveiled to shine a spotlight on creative, locally-sourced solutions for Maple Ridge under the themes titled Economically Sustainable Maple Ridge or Build Back Better. Participants were asked to submit innovative ideas that have improved or will improve services, and or the qualities of life for the residents of the Maple Ridge, with a deadline of Aug. 31, said Karen Hansen, who was the coordinator for the challenge.

“We want to thank everyone who participated in our challenge. Staff are extremely pleased to see how our inaugural challenge has been received by the private sector and all the non-profits. All the entrants take a significant amount of time to detail in and submit their applications. This has been a great initiative to continue to build upon those external relationships,” she said.

In the coming days, staff will be visiting the businesses and presenting the awards to the winners.

To learn more about Innovation Challenge Maple Ridge and the finalists, people are encouraged to visit: innovationchallenge.mapleridge.ca

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