THE National Business Model Competition (NBMC) will see teams start competing tomorrow for a sponsored prize of $4 million this year.

The four teams from the University of the West Indies were featured on Friday in the Caribbean Business Report. Today we look at the teams from the University of Technology (UTech) and the Northern Caribbean University (NCU).

The UTech teams

Digital Farms

Team members Remon Goulbourne and Yanique Dixon are both chemical engineering final year students at the university. Coming from an agrarian background, Digital Farms is their solution to the problem of efficiently irrigating crops using a digital irrigation system.

FEEVR

Jonoi Ramsay and Jason Evans are students of the Joan Duncan School of Entrepreneurship, Ethics and Leadership, out of the College of Business and Management. FEEVR is their answer to the problem of monitoring fevers, especially in babies and the elderly, who may have difficulty expressing themselves.

MSEC Medical

Team members Jason Evans, Romee Prehay, Annette Samuels, Craig Broderick and Richard Mullings are students from the School of Business Administration, College of Business and Management. With all the scare about the immune system, this team brings to market a device that tests the immune system on the go, alerting the user of the need for quick action.

Tropical Exotics

Kerese Miller and Gavin Simpson are students of the Faculty of Education and Liberal Arts and past student of the Caribbean School of Architecture and the Faculty of the Built Environment respectively. Jamaicans love to eat fish and can’t seem to have enough of them — so this team brings to market the Jamaican Tilapia fish, grown in brackish water to retain the salty taste, similar to fish directly from the sea.

The NCU teams

MicroSpex

Final year students at NCU Eugenie Addison and Dwayne Carridice is offering a solution in air-quality monitoring that will enable employers to create an environment that is safe for employees. The system detects pathogens, allergens and overall air quality, and promises to improve productivity of employees and prevent adverse health conditions.

Vitae

NCU’s Lancelot Riley, Odane Plummer, Gail Wanliss, Kenesha Powell and Samantha Rowe have created Vitae. The product focuses on revolutionising the way people view nutrition through the use of the scientifically tested plant, moringa, which has a wide range of health and nutrition benefits. The company’s flagship product is a moringa Granola bar which offers great taste and good nutrition for its consumers.

JarGro

David Smith, Colin Thorne and Craig Campbell have created a smart appliance, called JarGro, to support the production of food particularly for urban communities. The product replicates the natural way a plant grows thus providing all the attributes for the plant to survive. JarGro uses natural LED plant light, and a built-in irrigation system called Aeroponics, which uses 98 per cent less water and 70 per cent less fertiliser. The unique feature of JarGro is that it is built around a minimalistic concept that enables it to fit in a kitchen.

Tranquil Fit

Young entrepreneurs Patrice Reid and Jehenelle Johnson have designed a hydro-therapeutic massage headwear that appears to be typical fashion headwear called Tranquil Fit. The headwear is an insulated structure that hosts a network of tubes which allow water to flow freely without touching one’s skin.

The wearer can hear the flow of water like waves of the ocean, putting them into a relaxed mood. The intensity of the vibration can be adjusted, and it has a removable, rechargeable and replaceable battery with a life of five hours.

Rapido Spice

Rapido Spice is an all-natural seasoning tenderiser made with a mixture of unique seasoning blends that is able to speed up the cooking time of protein-based products. This unique property is created by the addition of a natural tenderiser that breaks down protein into a simpler form. While Rapido Spice saves the consumer time and money, it also boosts the immune system, protecting the body from cellular damage and assisting with digestive problems.