Windsor, ON (April 20, 2020) – WEtech Alliance, a local technology hub, has launched a 3-day community Minecraft build tournament as a creative way to rebuild and reconnect community as COVID-19 is physically distancing students, employees and community.

The tournament, called Tech Connect Creative Build Tournament powered by EZY Mode, invites dreamers, innovators, students, companies and community to build a vision of our region’s brightest future using Minecraft, a sandbox style game akin to digital LEGO.The theme for the tournament is The Future is SMART. Builds can include buildings, smart-homes, machines, agriculture 2.0, landmarks, smart city infrastructure, landscapes, neighbourhoods, or anything that distinctly displays the evolution of Windsor-Essex (#YQG) and Chatham-Kent (#CKont).

“In many of the conversations we’ve had with our clients and local tech companies, one of the biggest concerns that kept coming up about teams working remotely was maintaining the company culture and connection with co-workers” said Adam Castle, Director of Venture Services at WEtech Alliance. “Despite being far from the office because of the pandemic, this tournament is engineering a creative way to help teams stay connected.

The Tech Connect Creative Build Tournament is open to everyone and every age group in Windsor-Essex and Chatham-Kent who have access to Minecraft – Java Edition on Mac or PC. Console and mobile versions are not supported. Participants have the choice to compete as an individual or as a team of up to 5 players.

“WEtech Alliance is adding a wonderful creative spin on the idea of networking with what I think could only be called social tech-working. It’s perfect for people of all ages, all skill sets, and especially those in business, because it provide them with an opportunity to explore what is perhaps the worlds largest online creative environment,” said Andrew Tompsett with Chatham-Kent Economic Development. “Not to mention there is a chance to win pizza from Oven 360, you can’t go wrong!”

Each build will be viewed and assessed by esteemed panel of judges on the lookout for amazing innovation and creativity!

Three winners will be crowned “Architects of Awesome” in the Individual Category and 1 winner will be crowned in the Team Category.
Each winner will receive a Gift Card for a family/team pizza night from Oven 360. 

Award categories include:

Where’s Our Time Machine Award: This award recognizes the build that makes our judges most want to hop and skip through time, just to see the build come to life.

Eureka Award: Your build is worthy of this award if it demonstrates the ability to solve big problems experienced by the masses and has potential to scale to meet those needs.

People’s Choice Award – This award celebrates the most creative and eye catching build that resonates with “the people” after a public voting period on social media.

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work Award: The winner of this award has to do 3 simple things. 1) Build as a team (hence the teamwork thing). 2) Design a build that makes even our most discerning of judges tremble with awe. 3) Build with community in mind – The team build that wins will exhibit a keen sense of a future built to lift our community to the next level.

Register below. For full details, click here.