The room was a-buzz as business students filed into The Venue in November, ready to give their one-minute pitch about the project they had created for the annual $5 Challenge. Marking the end of the Trent Business Student Association’s Entrepreneurship Week, which was sponsored by the Greater Peterborough Innovation Cluster’s FastStart program, the $5 Challenge tasks students with creating, innovating, and delivering on a new business concept, all in only 5 days and with only $5 of seed money.

And this year, once again, Trent students did not disappoint. Student-created businesses spanned everything from self-care kits to promote student wellbeing during the upcoming exam season, to men’s beard oil – appropriately named “Excalibeard.”

“The $5 Challenge gives Business students a fantastic opportunity to experience running a business in the real world,” said third-year Business Administration student Nick Edwards, whose group produced a comedy broadsheet called the Student Procrastinator. “Personally, it helped me develop my leadership skills and made me much more confident in my ability to work with others and network with business owners.”

At the end of the night, first place in this year’s competition was awarded to Jessica Batley, Alexandra Gilmour, Chris Manduca, and Adam Shields for their business, Trent Bat Boxes. The group walked away with $150 gift card and a meeting with CEO and president of the Greater Peterborough Chamber of Commerce, Stuart Harrison. Trent Bat Boxes made a profit of $770 and brought in a total of $1,325. The innovative design of the boxes also caught the attention of the Riverview Park and Zoo, and come spring 2017, the boxes are set to appear at green spaces across Peterborough.