The City of Fredericton, in collaboration with the University of New Brunswick, New Brunswick Community College, and Ignite, are pleased to announce the winners of the 2026 Boost Ideation Camp held at Planet Hatch as this year’s delivery agent. Boost brings together students, researchers, and entrepreneurs for a five-day event focused on creating tangible solutions to enhance lives within the community.
Boost uses technology and partnerships to enable civic innovation and solve municipal challenges for the greater Fredericton community. This year, students were asked to develop AI-powered solutions focused on improving the lives of Fredericton residents. Participants also had the option to bring their own idea forward.
Team Blaha Lujza was awarded first place for their innovative AI powered solution entitled “Fred It Right!” to help residents navigate proper waste reduction and recycling to reduce contamination, mitigate the number of recyclable materials in the landfills, and provide a user-friendly experience for residents.
“We designed Fred it Right! to be simple, fast, and accessible” said A. Alfarizy, team leader. “Using AI to interpret what residents are holding in their hands allows us to turn complex waste rules into clear, actionable guidance - without changing how the City of Fredericton operates.”
Team Uconnect came in second place building an actual prototype of an AI powered platform, CivicConnect, available 24/7 designed to make city and provincial services in Fredericton accessible to every resident – in their language of choice - through simple, natural conversation. It provides a real-time insights dashboard that reveals the information residents are looking to access and identifies trends and areas for improvement.
“This experience gave us a deep understanding of Fredericton’s civic challenges and the opportunity to build something meaningful for residents” said Arpit Jha, team leader. “Our diverse team combined product thinking, user centric design, and real community insights to shape a solution that genuinely adds public value.”
Best Video went to SeaGreen Solutions, which developed an innovative approach of incorporating a natural substance into urban soils, landscaping, stormwater systems, and select construction materials to reduce the carbon impact and support Fredericton’s climate targets.
The City of Fredericton is proud to be an early adopter of emerging technologies and civic innovation. Through Boost, entrepreneurs and post-secondary students are given the opportunity to co-create and test solutions to real municipal challenges in a living lab environment. Boost is supported by Fredericton’s digital infrastructure, including its Open Data Portal, LoRaWAN (IoT sensor network), and Rogers 5G network.
Additional information about the Boost Ideation Camp is available on the city’s website.