The RevUp Circuit is a 4-week bootcamp run by the University of Ottawa Entrepreneurship Hub, designed for early-stage founders to refine their business ideas and pitching skills. This summer, 20 entrepreneurs went through the program, culminating in Exhibition Day where each team presented their pitch to a panel of judges. ROASYS won 1st place.
The best pitch is the one that makes the problem impossible to ignore.
What began as intelligent traffic management research has evolved into ROASYS. Our pitch focused on a straightforward argument: Canadian cities are spending billions on congestion while the technology to fix it already exists. The barrier is not innovation. It is cost and compatibility. ROASYS addresses both by building an adaptive system that works with infrastructure cities already have, at a fraction of what competitors charge. Presenting that case to judges with experience evaluating early-stage companies was a useful test of whether the argument holds up under scrutiny. It did.
The competition itself was strong. Twenty teams across different sectors presented on Exhibition Day, and the quality of ideas on display confirmed that the Ottawa startup ecosystem is producing serious work. For ROASYS, the win is not the endpoint. It is confirmation that the problem is real, the solution is credible, and the next phase of development is worth pursuing.
Wrapping Up with Key Insights
Winning the RevUp Circuit validated what we already believed: Canadian cities need a smarter, more affordable way to manage traffic. The competition forced us to sharpen that argument, and the judges confirmed it holds.
