Lakehead Engineering team awarded top prize in the Bright Minds Corporate Innovation Challenge

Three Lakehead PhD students from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering recently participated in the 2025 Bright Minds Corporate Innovation Challenge.

This was organized by Fuel Innovation as part of the City of Orillia’s Innovation Collective. The challenge brought together teams to develop innovative solutions to solve problems identified by the City of Orillia. Those solutions were presented to a panel of judges during Lakehead’s Research and Innovation Week.
 
The WCN team made up of three Lakehead PhD students – Sana Sharif, Muhammad Omair, and Mudassar Liaq – was awarded second place and earned an Honorable Mention for their outstanding work. Their proposed Real-time Recreation Centre Capacity Tracking  System stood out for its innovation, vision, and potential for real-world implementation. In first place were another Lakehead student, Omid Latifi, from Computer Science, and Georgian College student Pratik Das.
 
The winners were recognized and awarded prizes by Orillia Mayor Don McIsaac during the City of Orillia Council Meeting on March 24, 2025 at the Council Chambers.