Orbitist, a startup company in the Fredonia Technology Incubator, is advancing to the Erie Hack Water Innovation Summit, an entrepreneurial competition designed to generate solutions for problems plaguing Lake Erie, in Cleveland on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 2 and 3.
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| Orbitist team members Kristen O'Connor, Nicholas Gunner, Jason Zimmermann and Atticus Kiser. |
Headed by Nicholas Gunner, a 2011 graduate of Fredonia, Orbitist will pitch its project – connecting communities to the value of water – on Wednesday to a panel of judges with environmental, entrepreneurial and technology expertise.
Erie Hack is a data and engineering competition that unites coders, developers, engineers and water experts to generate enduring solutions to Lake Erie’s biggest challenges. The two-day event serves both as the final round for awarding Erie Hack prizes and a conference focused on topics of water technology innovation. The competition offers prizes totaling $100,000 – including a grand prize of $50,000 – for the most creative and effective hacks or usable software that could advance the condition of Lake Erie.
Only eight finalists, drawn from competitions held in six partner cities (Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, Toledo, Erie, Pa., and Windsor, Ontario) were selected at a challenge held April 13 in Detroit to advance to the innovation summit.
“We believe that all water issues are ultimately traced back to human beings, but we also believe that humans are reasonable creatures and when armed with the right knowledge will act in the best interests of our water systems,” said Mr. Gunner, Orbitist president. “We've created a process and a digital platform for streamlining cost-effective water communication and engagement that uses beautiful storytelling, data visualization, and a unique citizen science platform that can be adapted to collect any kind of data from anyone, on any device,” he added.
Gunner, who previously served as social media manager in the Department of Marketing and Communications at Fredonia and has a degree in Television and Digital Film, founded Orbitist in 2015.
Orbitist’s goal at the competition is to connect communities to the value of water. It considers water communication as the most important issue surrounding Lake Erie, and that solving this issue will ultimately resolve all other water-related issues.
Orbitist is a multimedia, data visualization and technology company that focuses on conservation outreach efforts. By pairing citizen science to pre-existing hobbies, such as kayaking, fishing, and biking, Orbitist is able to add layers of meaning to these activities by helping conservation organizations reach wider audiences and engage them in the process. Orbitist’s goal is to bring all the sophistication that entertainment and marketing industries bring to their storytelling to conservation.
