The time has never been better to be an entrepreneur at the University of Toronto.
Yesterday, U of T announced that it will receive more than $3 million in funding from the Ontario government to increase training and support for student entrepreneurship.
Offered through the Ontario’s new Campus-Linked Accelerator Program (CLA), the $3,056,000 of funding over two years will enable U of T to better coordinate its entrepreneurship activities, expand the base of students exposed to entrepreneurship at the university and enhance the quality of training, said Scott Mabury, U of T’s vice-president of university operations.
“The University of Toronto has long been a leader in fostering entrepreneurship,” Mabury said. “This new investment allows us to strengthen the impact of our range of initiatives and intensify our ties with the regional innovation ecosystem.”
In fact, U of T produces more startups than any other university in Canada and is already home to a diverse ecosystem of entrepreneurship supports, including accelerators, programs, courses, classes and co-curricular organizations.
One such accelerator, U of T Engineering’s Entrepreneurship Hatchery, has nurtured successful startups like FuelWear and Modly, and engages students through speaker series, idea markets, weekend competitions, expert mentorship, access to the Faculty’s resources and more.
“I am excited about the opportunities this funding will create for the Hatchery and future participants,” said Joseph Orozco, the Hatchery’s executive director. “The Hatchery aims to change the mindset of our students, to foster merit and passion, while learning core business principles. They will leave our program with key competencies that will help them shape their own careers, and have also pushed some great ideas forward.”
The Hatchery works in tandem with other accelerators on campus and around Toronto, including Rotman’s Creative Destruction Lab, the Impact Centre in the Faculty of Arts & Science, the MaRS centre and UTEST, part of the Innovations and Partnerships office. U of T’s Banting and Best Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship will operate as an umbrella accelerator to coordinate entrepreneurship activities across the University’s three campuses.
“Fostering the entrepreneurial spirit among students is a key component of Ontario’s Youth Jobs Strategy, through programs that help transfer their ideas and skills to the marketplace while creating rewarding careers,” said Reza Moridi, Ontario’s minister of research and innovation and minister of training, colleges and universities.
“By partnering with colleges and universities to support entrepreneurship, we are ensuring our province’s business leaders of tomorrow are getting the support they need to succeed today.”
Read more about entrepreneurship at U of T Engineering.
He pioneered U of T Engineering’s “inverted classroom”, was one of the first in the Faculty to teach entirely using a tablet PC, and he calls himself “a facilitator of experiences, not a deliverer of content.”
Dr. Micah Stickel (ECE), a senior lecturer in The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, was named to the American Society for Engineering Education’s Top 20 Under 40 last week. The list is the cover story for the current issue of ASEE Prism, the society’s magazine.
Stickel was cited for his experience-based teaching approach, and his pioneering of the “inverted classroom” style in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, where he has served as first year chair since 2012. He has won four departmental teaching awards and the Faculty’s Early Career Teaching Award.
He was also one of the first in the Faculty to teach entirely with a tablet PC, replacing the blackboard with annotations on the tablet, and he has published three papers assessing the tablet’s effectiveness as a teaching tool. One of these, “Lessons Learned From the First-Time Use of Tablet PCs in the Classroom” resulted in his selection as a New Faculty Fellow at the 38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference in 2008.
From the Prism article:
Micah Stickel vividly recalls the lab where, as an electrical engineering undergraduate, he suddenly saw how all those theoretical ideas from class “were actually being put into practice.” Today, the University of Toronto senior lecturer pioneers high-tech and hands-on techniques to give every student such aha! moments from day one.
“I’m a facilitator of experiences, not a deliverer of content,” explains Stickel, who shunned the tenure track for teaching when he joined the faculty in 2007 after earning a Ph.D. from Toronto. His innovations have been evolving since he was a TA. To motivate and help passive learners with often-conceptual material, he introduced clickers, online quizzes that targeted misconceptions, and activities that provide instant feedback in large lectures. “It’s amazing how the class as a whole moves to the right answer,” says Stickel, who sees correct response rates jump from 50 to 80 percent after students think and talk about the problem. [Read the complete article – PDF]
“We are very proud to have teachers such as Micah who are committed to reimagining engineering education,” said Professor Faird Najm, chair of ECE. “The enthusiasm he brings to the classroom is obvious to his students, and it’s wonderful to see his excellent work recognized in this way.”
Prism is the flagship publication of the American Society for Engineering Education, a non-profit association of more than 12,000 engineering faculty members, U.S. colleges of engineering and engineering technology, corporations, and other organizations dedicated to promoting excellence in engineering and engineering technology education. Dr. Stickel serves as the University of Toronto’s representative to the ASEE.
Standing in front of 1,254 students on the first day of their engineering undergraduate careers, alumnus entrepreneur Mike Branch (ECE 0T3) declared, “You’re at the start of something incredible right now… you’re in the exact right place at the exact right time.”
On September 4, the Faculty welcomed this year’s incoming class with a special plenary lecture from Branch at Convocation Hall – from the same stage students would cross at their own graduations four or five years from now.
“Students, today is the beginning of a new journey,” said Dean Cristina Amon in her opening remarks. “Today is your first day at the finest engineering school in Canada and one of the very best in the world.”
“This journey will not always be easy,” she shared, “but you did not decide to study engineering at the University of Toronto because it was easy – you came seeking a challenge.”
The theme of challenging yourself and pushing boundaries echoed in Branch’s address, as he encouraged students to continually try new things and reach beyond expectation.
“As aspiring engineers, my biggest advice to you is to challenge yourself,” said Branch, “not just in the classroom, but in everything you do in life. When you do, you’ll inevitably open yourself to more opportunities, and therefore more chances for success.”
Branch, who started as a U of T engineering undergraduate just 15 years ago, knows all too well how it feels to sit in the seats of Convocation Hall. Now, a little over a decade after graduation, he is the founder of two successful software companies, Inovex Inc. and MapsBI.
His first company, Inovex Inc., is a software firm that Branch started in his parents’ living room shortly after graduating from U of T Engineering. The firm specializes in developing software applications for the health care, energy and environmental sectors.
With the success of Inovex, Branch and his team started MapsBI, an award-winning cloud-based software that uses mapping technology and business intelligence to interpret geographical data for a number of applications, such as analyzing the correlation between obesity rates and proximity to fast-food restaurants.
As an engineer who’s experienced a great deal of success in entrepreneurial ventures, Branch encouraged students to seek their own passions, whatever they may be.
He asked students to think deeply about why they had decided to pursue engineering, and invited them to respond using the hashtag #engineerbecause. Responses were shown on a projector via live feed. Many students agreed it was with the intention of making a positive difference on the world.
https://twitter.com/brandon_lista/status/507530222808625153
#EngineerBecause …I saw problems around me and I wanted to solve them.
— Jason Bazylak (@ProfBazylak) September 4, 2014
#engineerbecause I like it so I'm gonna put a ring on it
— Padmanie (@PadmanieAnn) September 4, 2014
“For me, it was the feeling I got when I created something,” said Branch. “I like to think that maybe some of you are here for the same reason… bringing your imagination to life.”
With a series of achievements under his belt already, Branch has no plans of slowing down. He challenged new undergraduates to follow opportunities, to innovate and to have a positive influence.
“I challenge you to take what you learn here and do something game changing with it,” he said. “Create something that will make a difference.”
Watch Branch’s plenary address:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVeDf5bhZtM]
While some of us are using the new power of 3D printers to make smartphone cases and chocolate figurines, two engineering students from the University of Toronto are using them to print functional human skin.
On September 18, Arianna McAllister (IBBME MASc 1T4) and Lian Leng (MIE MASc 1T0, PhD 1T5) were named the Canadian winners of the 2014 James Dyson Award for their invention, the PrintAlive Bioprinter.
The machine – created in collaboration with Professor Axel Guenther (MIE), alumnus Boyang Zhang (ChemE PhD 1T4) and Dr. Marc Jeschke, head of Sunnybrook Hospital’s Ross Tilley Burn Centre – prints large, continuous layers of tissue that recreate natural skin.
With serious burn victims, doctors typically must remove part of the patients healthy skin and graft it onto the burned area. With PrintAlive, this painful step could be eliminated. The printed product includes hair follicles, sweat glands and other human skin complexities, providing an on-demand skin graft for burn victims.
Better yet, the machine uses the patient’s own cells, which McAllister said, “would completely eliminate immunologic rejection, and the need for painful autografting and tissue donation.”
No larger than an average microwave, it’s also portable and can print skin grafts on the go, potentially revolutionizing burn care in rural and developing areas around the world.
“Ninety per cent of burns occur in low and middle income countries, with greater mortality and morbidity due to poorly-equipped health care systems and inadequate access to burn care facilities,” said Dr. Jeschke. “Regenerating skin using a patient’s own stem cells can significantly decrease the risk of death in developing countries.”
Since 2008, the team has developed hundreds of design iterations to optimize how the machine operates. Recently completing a second generation, pre-commercial prototype of the machine, they hope to scale up their device from its current bench-top process to a higher volume automated process.
Winning $3,500 in this leg of the competition, the duo now competes for the international James Dyson Award, which offers a prize of over $60,000 to inventors and their university, to be announced this November. The award was created by vacuum tycoon James Dyson to inspire students around the world to “design something that solves a problem”.
Read more about Canada’s winning team on CBC News and BBC News.
Aiming for more than $42,000 in prizes, young U of T entrepreneurs pitching to investors packed their presentations with 3D animations, live classical guitar serenades, product giveaways hidden under audience chairs – and one very efficient mop bucket.
Welcome to demo night at the Entrepreneurship Hatchery, U of T Engineering’s startup incubator, where 13 companies competed for backing. The top prize was an investment of $20,000: the Lacavera Prize, sponsored by alumnus and CEO of Wind Mobile, Tony Lacavera (CompE 9T7).
The 13 presenting teams were chosen out of 37 groups that participated in the Hatchery’s concept development program over the summer. Each company included at least one engineering student, but they also drew members from a mix of backgrounds including biology, computer science and environmental science.
The students had developed their ideas and business models during four months of intense industry mentorship, entrepreneurship skills growth and engagement with Engineering’s equipment and resources. Finally, on September 11, each team hovered at the back of a room of judges and audience members for their big demo night – jumpy and primed to fight for real funding.
“This is an example of passion, dedication and entrepreneurship and this is exactly what the Hatchery is about,” said Hatchery director Joseph Orozco, gesturing to the crowd of students at the back. “Those entrepreneurial skills that you guys have been developing will stay for life with you.”
The result was more than a dozen slickly presented pitches that made a case for a $20,000 injection into their business. Each company contended for a product or service more surprising and genuinely useful than the last. For starters, how about mop wringing?
After welcome remarks from Orozco and Hatchery advisor Joseph Paradi (ChemE, MIE), the first company to compete for the Lacavera investment strode onto the stage – pushing the mop bucket.
What followed was a clear description and demonstration of a product called Power Wring. The mop’s business model was founded on small and affordable add-on mop wringers that could save time and preserve the neck- and back-health of tens of thousands of caretaking staff across Canada and beyond. They’d already validated their concept with feedback from U of T’s caretaking department, which signed on as Power Wring’s first customer.
In each of the five-minute pitches that followed, the same format was echoed: problem, solution, market projection and comparisons, validation, business model and team introductions. The Hatchery-trained entrepreneurs brought forth businesses grounded in their unique hacks of a broad swath of real-world issues, including medical diagnostics (AccSYS Diagnostics), content marketing (Dabble), hydrogen-fueled vehicles (Hydron), breathable outerwear (Delta Outerwear) and more.
But then there were the extras. To set them apart as more memorable, more real or more quirky than the rest of the pack – and to make them stand out in the minds of the judges – some companies included special elements in their presentations. At times, the demos resembled a Dragons Den-style hybrid of investment showcase and performance-based entertainment.
Mech Minds, a company vying for an investment in its innovative grocery store checkout system, created a virtual supermarket on stage, scanned cans of coffee and boxes of ice cream with their device.
Savvy (pictured), a company developing a new way to connect fashion retailers with customers, cast team members in a theatrical simulation of the Eaton Centre.
Konnectivity presented its networking app with all members dressed in tuxedos, and closed the presentation with a classical guitar performance. Oonbox, a 
business communications software company, tucked business cards loaded with token credits for their system under each audience member’s chair. And Shour, a company that installed its ‘smart’ showerhead system on stage, leveraged a running joke about one of their co-founders’ distaste for bathing to get the audience on its side with humour and personal connection.
But the companies that came away with the evening’s prizes needed only to present their facts.
Judges awarded the $2,500 Orozco prize to Power Wring, the mop gadget, and one of two $10,000 prizes to LoftShare, a company developing software to streamline the roommate search, housing rental, lease application and negotiation, and rent payment process. (It’s already started to experience a buzz around Toronto after launching only the first portion of its plan – the roommate pairing service). And Pheedloop, which developed speaker and conference feedback software already in use by a professional client in the U.K., took the other $10,000 investment.
The main event, the $20,000 Lacavera Prize, went to FuelWear, a company that already launched its concept on crowdfunding platform IndieGoGo and beat its target for investment in just six days.
FuelWear offers “the first smart heated base layer” for users looking to stay warm for up to five hours as they ski, hike, or just try to walk to the grocery store in the midst of a polar vortex. (Read more about FuelWear)
Judy Paradi, adjunct Engineering professor, taught FuelWear co-founders Alex Huang (ElecE 1T3 + PEY) and Jason Yakimovich (CompE 1T3 + PEY) in a fourth-year entrepreneurship course at the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. She gave a visible start when the news was announced and the audience hollered and cheered.
“I’m so happy for them; they were fantastic students,” said Paradi. “A lot of kids enter the class and they don’t really know if they want to be entrepreneurs, but you could tell right from the beginning, they were serious.”
“They started with a coat that didn’t make any sense, but we worked through various iterations and they were totally committed. I’m so pleased for them, I couldn’t be happier.”
Molly Shoichet (ChemE, IBBME), the world-renowned expert in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, is the U of T President Meric Gertler’s new senior advisor on science and engineering engagement.
Shoichet, who says she has been fascinated by science since she was six years old, hopes to motivate the next generation to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.
“It is the ‘geeks’ who change the world,” said Shoichet, about the message she wants to tell young people. “Embrace the geek in you, make a difference and tell people about it.”
In her new role, Shoichet will collaborate with U of T colleagues to communicate the excitement of their discoveries with the public. U of T’s science engagement initiatives include building partnerships for delivering science outreach programs; highlighting ongoing U of T lectures and public events; and coordinating a wide range of professional development and leadership opportunities, including an annual Science Leadership program for faculty members offered in April 2015, and a science journalism course for graduate students taught by Globe and Mail science writer Ivan Semeniuk.
“The goal is to bring people who are curious and engaged in the community into our world, and raise their awareness of the fantastic work being done at the University of Toronto – and across Canada,” said Shoichet.
Through her new role, Shoichet will support the upcoming Science Literacy Week at U of T, which takes place September 22–28. Spearheaded by alumnus Jesse Hildebrand and U of T Libraries – and in collaboration with the Toronto Public Library and York University – Science Literacy Week is a city-wide event that offers public access to documentary screenings, book displays and lectures, among other offerings, to showcase the field of science in its many forms.
“Science Literacy Week is a wonderful way to engage the Toronto public and U of T community in the wonders of science,” said Shoichet.
Internationally regarded for her lab’s groundbreaking research, Shoichet is a member of the Order of Ontario and holds the distinction as the only person to be a Fellow of Canada’s three national academies: the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Engineering and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
A University Professor – U of T’s most distinguished rank – Shoichet holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Tissue Engineering, and is a professor in both the Institute for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) and the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry (ChemE). Her work focuses on polymers for drug delivery and regeneration – materials that promote healing in the body.
Shoichet currently leads a multidisciplinary team of researchers working on a range of projects, from approaches to brain and spinal cord regeneration to new drug delivery methods for treating cancer. She has published more than 400 papers, patents and abstracts and founded two spin-off companies from her research.
“I am delighted and grateful that Professor Shoichet has taken on this new responsibility,” said President Gertler. “She brings to the position immense talent and accomplishment, not only as a world-renowned scientist and innovator, but also as a teacher, mentor, and communicator. She is also a leading public-policy advisor on science, technology, and innovation.
“Science literacy is one of the core competencies we need, to advance our shared prosperity and to help build a happier, better world. Molly Shoichet is a powerful advocate of this crucial cause.”
With files from Liz Do