The Calgary Herald reports that “seventeen startup technology companies, each hoping to revolutionize the energy industry, spent Tuesday selling themselves to a panel of judges.”

“The entrepreneurs, finalists in Calgary’s inaugural Energy New Venture Competition, were chasing a grand prize worth $25,000 and the chance to make valuable connections with energy firms and potential investors.”

Some of the startups and technologies included:

• “Calgary-based FREDsense Technologies, which emerged as the day’s grand prize winner, aims to create biosensor solutions for use in water quality monitoring for the oil and gas sector.”
• “Second place winner Luxmux is developing a spectrometer that enables real-time and accurate steam quality measurements for in situ thermal heavy oil operations.”
• “Another Alberta company, SIX Safety Systems, is developing an operator fatigue detection system that it says will mitigate safety risks on work sites.”
• “A ‘smart skin’ technology developed by U of C PhD candidate Kaushik Parmar aims to help detect and pinpoint pipeline leakages.”