Future Prize Challenge

Future Prize Challenge is an opportunity for students in Grades 6-8 to design solutions to a real-world challenge and pitch their solutions in a competition with other CIS Ontario schools. The event includes a design thinking workshop, a fun day of designing solutions, and an exciting final ‘pitch’ to a panel of expert judges.

Rhiannon, Ella and Evan were coached by Ms. Swain, who made sure these students were fully prepared and ready for the big day. In order for Ms. Swain to coach the team, she had to take part in three different preparation sessions with other teachers. They learned how to conduct interviews, gather information, brainstorm problems and deal with unconscious bias.

With Ms. Swain’s help, the three students prepared for this event by identifying a real-world problem and finding a way to solve it. The students decided to focus on the issues surrounding teens and the poor food choices they make. On top of doing secondary research, Ella, Evan and Rhiannon conducted interviews with several students at Greenwood about their eating habits and what motivates them to choose their food. Ms. Swain also coached the students on how to deal with bias and what it takes to narrow an area of focus in order to come up with the best possible solution.

When challenge day came, the students were given the question: “How might we leverage technology to solve a local problem in our community?” The solution had to be app-based and they only had 25 minutes to design their idea and condense it into a two-minute speech.

Within this short time span, they came up with an app called Food Grab. From previous research, they knew that, on average, teens were consuming 110 grams of sugar per day. Knowing this information, they wanted to develop a system that delivers healthy, consistent, tasty meals and provides consumers with real-time information on all of the food they purchase. Food Grab differs from other companies because it allows you to purchase snacks and beverages, as well as meals. Evan explained that the app will also allow users to scan or search food items to learn about their nutritional value.

The students first presented this idea to eight competing groups in a smaller room and won People’s Choice Award. They then presented their idea in front of all competing groups and were critiqued by a panel of expert judges from some of Canada’s most innovative companies. Overall, our team won second place!

Ms. Swain was proud of her students and saw creative confidence in all three of them. She said “the good thing about this challenge is that it does not require you to be particularly good in one subject. It’s all about problem-solving, entrepreneurial skills and a variety of other skills that are crucial to being successful in any job you do.” Ms. Swain was immensely proud of Rhiannon, Ella and Evan and knows they have a bright future ahead of them.