Quebecor is pleased to award the Pierre Péladeau Bursaries for the 18^th consecutive year to support the next generation of Québec entrepreneurs. This year, the Corporation has again distributed $100,000 to budding businesspeople. Through this award, Quebecor provides the recipients with significant financial assistance and lends their future businesses greater credibility.

Once again, I have been overwhelmed by our young entrepreneurs’ exceptional spirit of initiative and creativity. The winning projects selected by our jury are all distinguished by their innovative vision. Not only are the recipients promising business ventures but their missions entail positive and important social and environmental impacts.

Recipients of 2016 Pierre Péladeau Bursaries

(video only available in French)

Making drinking water with wave energy

Dragan Tutic and Renaud Lafortune of Université de Sherbrooke have been awarded the First Pierre Péladeau Bursary, worth $50,000, to help them build Oneka Technologies. They have developed autonomous desalination units providing fresh water using only waves as an energy source.

Instant preliminary diagnosis of medical imaging

Mitchel Benovoy of École Polytechnique de Montréal and Pascal Labrecque of Université Laval have been awarded the Second Pierre Péladeau Bursary, worth $30,000, to start up Corstem inc. Their goal is to develop and bring to market cutting-edge technologies to enable health services to reduce the human factor in analyzing cardiovascular pathologies and accelerate and refine the diagnostic process.

Bringing renewable energy to the masses

Marc-Antoine Bonin of McGill University and Antony Diaz of Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf have been awarded the Third Pierre Péladeau Bursary, worth $20,000, to develop their business uvolt. They have invented a bracelet that uses renewable energy (kinetic, solar and thermal) to charge mobile phones anywhere.

The Pierre Péladeau Bursaries, named in honour of the formidable vision and entrepreneurial spirit of Quebecor’s founder, were created to help students start up a business. Students at all Québec universities are eligible. Every year, the three best projects are selected by an independent jury. Since their inception 18 years ago, the Pierre Péladeau Bursaries have distributed a total of $1.6 million to more than 60 young entrepreneurs.

The members of the jury for the 2016 Pierre Péladeau Bursaries were:

• Pierre Laurin, Chairman of the Pierre Péladeau Bursaries jury, Corporate Director, former Director of HEC and Chairman of the Board of Atrium Innovations
• Manon Brouillette, President and CEO, Videotron
• Sylvie Lalande, Corporate Director, including of Quebecor Inc.
• Adam Lapointe, CEO, Soccrent
• Claire Léger, Director, St-Hubert Group Inc.
• Marc Leroux, President, Priorat Capital Inc.
• Geneviève Marcon, President, GM Développement
• Érik Péladeau, President and CEO, Groupe Lelys