Greenlight Geomatics, a team consisting of students from the Faculty of Business Administration and from UNB's Technology Management and Entrepreneurship program, took top prize at this year’s New Brunswick Innovation Foundation (NBIF) BREAKTHRU business plan competition.

UNB students Brad Pierce (second-year MBA), Khaled Taha (third-year BBA), Anthony Llukwe (second-year software engineering), and John Lord (fifth-year mechanical engineering) represented the Miramichi, N.B., business and were awarded the platinum prize for their invention of a GPS system that will attach to a railcar and control herbicide spray without affecting environmentally sensitive areas. This should help save the railway industry millions of dollars that they currently spend on trying to keep railway tracks free of plant growth.

As the top team, Greenlight Geomatics received $100,000 in equity investment from NBIF and $39,500 in  branding, marketing, legal, accounting, and IT consulting, as well as business mentoring and website hosting services.

The students representing Greenlight are all members of the Activator program launched this year by the Faculty of Business Administration’s International Business and Entrepreneurship Centre.

In addition to the success of the Greenlight team, the Trivnet Media System lead by UNB MBA graduate Rivers Corbett took home the gold prize for their tabletop multimedia device that provides everything from entertainment to billing information to customers restaurant tables.