The Hub

Picture this: You upload an image of a T-shirt to a software program, and within seconds it generates a detailed product description covering the size, brand, materials, condition and other key features – and uses search engine optimization (SEO) to help get that T-shirt into an online shopping cart.

That’s what Athiya Rastogi has built with SnapWrite, a startup that uses AI to generate product descriptions from images, helping second-hand clothing stores make a name for themselves in the online marketplace.

“As long as the human eye can see a product’s feature, the AI can see it. Doesn’t matter if it’s a low-quality photo or there’s a busy background,” says Rastogi, who graduated from the University of Toronto Scarborough with an honours bachelor of science in statistics.

Aryaman and Athiya Rastogi

Rastogi built the AI technology with her brother and co-founder Aryaman after taking courses in machine learning. She initially grew the startup out of The Hub, U of T Scarborough's early-stage entrepreneurship incubator.

SnapWrite has since enjoyed success in pitch competitions including at The Hub and The Bridge, another campus-linked accelerator of U of T Scarborough, winning around $40,000 in funding without having to give up equity. The startup has also attracted funding from big-league investors including FounderFuel, Inovia Capital and Panache Ventures.

Rastogi says the idea for SnapWrite emerged from a business she operated when she was a student. “While in school, I ran my own resale store and met a woman who ran a pre-loved clothing store,” she says. “When I looked her up on Instagram, there was this endless feed of other accounts that were doing the same thing. This is a market with challenges that have not been fully addressed yet.”

Rastogi explains that demand for second-hand clothing is exploding, but because each pre-owned product is unique, online postings made to sell them must be too – which poses a challenge for businesses trying to keep up with growing inventory.

SnapWrite helps these businesses save on time and labour by enabling them to upload hundreds of photos at once, with the platform giving each item a detailed digital identity in about 15 seconds – a task Rastogi says would take a human worker five to 15 minutes.

What’s more, SnapWrite also integrates with major web platforms such as Shopify, Wix and Magento to automatically sync clothes’ attributes with websites, so that garments can be posted automatically and appear in the right place when shoppers are suggested similar products.

These features have earned SnapWrite a client base of around 50 resellers and counting, including one that has more than 35 stores. The software has digitized 25,000 items and generated more than 700,000 product attributes, saving its users upwards of 6,000 hours, according to the company.

The startup has also managed to rope clothing brands into the second-hand cycle through an initiative in which partner brands ask customers to bring used products back to their stores. These items are then run through the AI and offered to second-hand stores to resell. This model has already saved 25,000 pieces of clothing from ending up in landfills, says Rastogi.

(photo by Don Campbell)

SnapWrite’s AI generates a unique inventory number, which Rastogi envisions could enable a digital passport system of sorts for used clothing. For example, a T-shirt may get digitized by SnapWrite, sold by a thrift store, and then re-donated months later to another second-hand store that also uses SnapWrite – or uploaded to the startup's consignment platform. Even more time would be saved should the AI recognize the shirt and be able to pull up its data.

Having identified a need in the clothing market, Rastogi says she and her brother are now focused on keeping SnapWrite's momentum going. “There’s no software in the Canadian market solving this problem in the resale market right now, so we decided to do it.”

Startup trains women in rural Costa Rica, 'upcycles' airline seats into leather goods

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 16:29:40 +0000

Startup trains women in rural Costa Rica, 'upcycles' airline seats into leather goods

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 03/08/2023 - 11:29

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Lynne Corvaglia, who graduated from U of T Scarborough two years ago, models one of her startup company's bags made of leather upcycled from old airline seats (photo courtesy of Wearsos)

Alexa Battler

Topic

Our Community

Entrepreneurship Week

International Women's Day

Lynne Corvaglia is on a mission to turn thousands of old airline seats into high-end leather products – and create job opportunities for women in rural parts of Costa Rica in the process.

Southwest Airlines replaces the leather seat covers on its planes every four years. To keep thousands of old seats out of landfills, the airline donates the leather to organizations that can transform it into new products.

More than 12,000 seats are being upcycled into bags and accessories through a program dedicated to teaching women in rural Costa Rica leatherworking and business skills.

“There's a lack of access to opportunities here. We want to create a social enterprise that can create a positive impact in the lives of those working with us,” says Corvaglia, the founder of upcycling startup Wearsos who graduated from the University of Toronto Scarborough’s International Development Studies (IDS) Co-op program two years ago.

“Our strategy is to produce and activate local economies in Costa Rica.”

The seats are being stored in the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), where Corvaglia lives and has helped spearhead the launch of a free workshop series. Hosted at CATIE, Corvaglia says the program is working to act as an incubator by teaching artisans the basic technical skills for leatherworking along with entrepreneurship and personal and professional development. About 60 women have taken the first induction workshop.

“The program at CATIE is meant to be comprehensive. It’s not just about leatherworking. We all want to empower women,” Corvaglia says. “They can learn the skills to start their own businesses and use upcycling as a tool.”

Women artisans in the CATIE workshop program have been learning to strip the leather from airline seats and create high-end goods (photo courtesy of Wearsos)

As a research centre, CATIE isn’t exactly built for the world of retail sales – that’s where Corvaglia’s startup Wearsos comes in. The company is dedicated to upcycling and plans to recruit women from CATIE’s program to become paid artisans. The women will then receive specialized training to make the specific products that Wearsos will eventually sell on its website, with a percentage of the profits going back to the training program.

“We’re trying to provide real jobs with Wearsos. While we can train women, we also need to provide economic stability and create a demand,” Corvaglia says.

Wearsos plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign to fundraise for their first year of production in the next few months. The launch will feature three bags: a belt bag (also known as a fanny pack), a crossbody and a tote. Other products in the works include duffle bags, shoes, clothing, laptop cases and other accessories.

Reducing waste is essential for Wearsos, a portmanteau of “wear” and sostenibilidad, or sustainability in Spanish. The company also plans to incorporate other sustainable materials into its products, such as textiles made from pineapple fibres.

Two of the leather accessories Wearsos plans to sell include a tote bag and a belt bag (photo courtesy of Wearsos)

Startup takes off amid pandemic

It’s taken three years, perseverance and a little serendipity for Wearsos to come together. In 2019, Corvaglia was completing a co-op placement at CATIE while volunteering with a women-run organization that supports entrepreneurs working in tourism. It was then that she witnessed the volatility of the tourism industry.

“These women have many jobs. Maybe their main one is they have a farm or they are tour guides – but they're also sewers and creators,” she says. “But in an economic crisis like the 2008 recession or the pandemic, a lot of these women lost all their jobs.

"We started thinking about how we can create other economic opportunities for people in rural areas. That’s where this whole project really came from.”

Wearsos has created a range of prototype products including shoes, passport holders and laptop sleeves (photo courtesy of Wearsos)

When Southwest Airlines contacted Corvaglia’s co-op adviser, Eliecer Vargas, about their initiative to recycle seats, Corvaglia and her business partner (and now husband) Christian Riquelme began writing proposals to create an upcycling company. They soon found The Hub, an entrepreneurial incubator at U of T Scarborough. Former director Gray Graffam encouraged the pair to enter the incubator’s annual startup competition. Wearsos later won first place and received $5,000 in funding.

The pandemic kept many of Wearsos’s plans and partnerships up in the air for years, but the company is now a registered business in Canada and Costa Rica – and another shipment of seats is on its way to CATIE.

Wearsos’s website includes a mailing list that will notify customers of news and product sales.

“During the pandemic, I was thinking, ‘Is this project even going to happen?’” Corvaglia says. “Now everything is just coming together.”

International Women’s Day: What's happening across U of T's three campuses

mattimar — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 18:38:00 +0000

International Women’s Day: What's happening across U of T's three campuses

mattimar Mon, 03/06/2023 - 13:38

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(photo by Matthew Dochstader/Paradox Images)

Mariam Matti

Topic

City & Culture

Entrepreneurship Week

ICUBE

The Hub

Alumni

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Faculty of Law

Faculty of Music

International Women's Day

International Women’s Day on March 8 is an opportunity to come together to celebrate women’s social, cultural and political accomplishments – and to reflect on the challenges and work that lie ahead.

This year’s theme is Embrace Equity, which aims to spark conversations around the world about why equal opportunities aren’t enough and how true inclusion requires equitable action.

U of T is hosting events across the three campuses featuring inspirational leaders and student groups. Here is a snapshot of what’s happening this week:

Jazz and Justice: Transformative, Equitable Futures in Music

The Faculty of Music is holding a panel discussion on the pathway for equitable futures in music with faculty Dean Ellie Hisama, Beth Coleman, an associate professor at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology at U of T Mississauga, and Grammy award-winning jazz artist Terri Lyne Carrington. The event is on March 6 at 3 p.m. inside Walter Hall on the St. George campus.

Crowns for Change: Flower Crowns

The International Student Centre (ISC) at U of T Scarborough invites students to make a beautiful flower crown, take photos with new friends and learn more about powerful female leaders who are making a difference around the world. The event takes place on March 7 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Highland Hall Event Centre.

Learning Technology Systems in Everyday Life: Women’s Experiences Navigating Refugee Resettlement

Negin Dahya, assistant professor at the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology at U of T Mississauga, is participating in the Lecture Me series, which highlights research from different faculty at U of T Mississauga. The virtual event will take place on March 7 from 7 to 8:15 p.m.

International Women’s Day Webinar

The Faculty of Law is hosting a panel discussion moderated by the Women and Law student group on March 8 from 12 to 1:30 p.m. The event features U of T alumnae Cherie Brant, national leader for the Indigenous law group at Borden Ladner Gervais, Rita Maxwell, a judge on the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, and Maria Zeldis, senior vice president legal at Onni Group of Companies.

Pitch with a Twist

Part of U of T’s Entrepreneurship Week, U of T Mississauga’s ICUBE incubator is hosting Pitch with a Twist, International Women’s Day edition on March 8 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at U of T Mississauga in the IMI Rotunda. The event features U of T alumna Lesley Hampton, an Anishinaabe artist and fashion designer, as a keynote speaker and provides an opportunity for women-identifying entrepreneurs to pitch early-stage ventures to a panel of women-identifying judges from a variety of sectors.

She Moves: A Conference with Motion

The Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education is inviting all women-identifying students to participate in MoveU, an evening of physical activity, wellness and discussion. The event takes place on March 8 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Athletic Centre on the St. George campus.

Empower the Leader Within

U of T Scarborough is hosting a panel discussion with inspiring executives about their career journeys, the challenges they’ve navigated and their hope for future leaders. The event takes place on March 8 from 5 to 7:30 pm. at the Instructional Centre.

Event in Solidarity with Iranian Women

In collaboration with the Iranian Scholars for Liberty, the U of T Students for a Free Iran (UTSFI) are holding an event on March 8 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. to show their support for women in Iran. The event will take place at the Galbraith Building in Room 220 on the St. George campus and is open to the community.

International Women’s Day Celebration: Women, Life, Liberty

The Iranian Women Organization of Ontario, U of T’s The Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Institute of Iranian Studies in the Faculty of Arts & Science and the Royal Ontario Museum are holding an event to reflect on women’s empowerment and leadership in Iran and the Middle East. The event takes place on March 8 from 6:15 to 9 p.m. at the Eaton Theatre at the ROM.

Inspire: Breaking Down Barriers to Success

Part of U of T’s Entrepreneurship Week, there will be a discussion with U of T Scarborough alumna Fennella Bruce, veteran television producer and host and media consultant, and Elina Chow, CEO of JotTech. The event takes place on March 8 from 6 to 8 p.m. at The Hub in Highland Hall.

International Women’s Day: Reproductive Rights and Faith

The Multi-Faith Centre on the St. George campus is hosting an event to explore how gender rights, justice and spirituality are connected on March 8 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the Main Activity Hall. The event features a panel discussion, a dinner and an opportunity to network.

Category: Woman, Film Screening and Panel Discussion

U of T's Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education and the Cinema Studies Institute in the Faculty of Arts & Science are hosting a screening of Category: Woman on March 8 at 7 p.m. at Innis Town Hall Theatre. There will be a panel discussion and a Q&A featuring filmmaker Phyllis Ellis following the screening.

Terri Lyne Carrington in Concert with U of T Jazz Orchestra

The Faculty of Music is hosting a concert with drummer, composer and producer Terri Lyne Carrington on March 8 at 7:30 at Walter Hall. Carrington, the founder and artistic director of the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice in Boston, will perform with the U of T jazz orchestra. U of T students are admitted free with a valid TCard, space permitting.

U of T startup Genecis scales up effort to commercialize ‘the holy grail of plastic replacement’

bresgead — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 16:38:10 +0000

U of T startup Genecis scales up effort to commercialize ‘the holy grail of plastic replacement’

bresgead Mon, 03/06/2023 - 11:38

Cutline

Genecis Bioindustries uses highly engineered bacteria to turn food waste into biodegradable natural polymers that can be used to make a range of environmentally friendly products – from T-shirts to flip flops (photo by Matt Volpe)

Adina Bresge

Topic

Our Community

Entrepreneurship Week

The Hub

Creative Destruction Lab

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship Hatchery

Startups

Sustainability

U of T Scarborough

Remember those carrot peels you threw in the compost? If Genecis Bioindustries has its way, you could soon be wearing them.

The clean-tech company is using highly engineered bacteria to turn food waste into biodegradable natural polymers called polyhydroxyalkanoates – or PHAs – that can be used to make products ranging from soft T-shirt fibres to squishy flip-flop soles.

With more than $20 million in funding raised, Genecis plans to become the first company to commercialize the food-waste-to-PHA production process, which it says would allow it to compete with synthetic plastics in both performance and cost – all without taking a toll on the environment.

“We’re moving very quickly,” says Director of Fermentation Andrew Chiappetta, one of several University of Toronto alumni who work at the company.

“The plan is to be at full commercial scale in the next few years.”

At a research facility in downtown Toronto, fermenters churn a cream-coloured brew where the microbial magic happens. First, the bacteria consume the carbon in organic matter and convert it into building blocks called monomers. This intermediate is then fed to another set of bacteria, which are deprived of specific nutrients to spur the production of PHA, which is stored in the cells as an energy source. Then, the PHA is extracted from the cells, collected, purified and processed into different formulations.

Genecis got its start in a University of Toronto Scarborough lab when founder and CEO Luna Yu – who earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree at U of T in four years – and her collaborators demonstrated their nascent technology using rice cookers. The startup went on to receive early support from U of T Scarborough’s the Hub, the Rotman School of Management’s Creative Destruction Lab and the Hatchery at the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

U of T also provided Genecis with space for its lab researchers to refine their approach.

“The University of Toronto has supported Genecis in many different stages of our development,” says Chiappetta, noting the company now has more than 40 employees.

“The education alone at U of T is great, and students can also take advantage of all the resources and programs that they have available for entrepreneurs.”

Genecis founder and CEO Luna Yu and her team originally demonstrated their technology in a U of T Scarborough lab (photo by Don Campbell)

With the support of Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator, government funds and venture capital financing, Genecis has since expanded its operations to two full research labs, as well as a pilot facility in Scarborough.

The company has also partnered with London, Ont.-based StormFisher Biogas to demonstrate the potential of its technology at scale.

Chiappetta, who graduated from U of T’s master of biotechnology program, says Genecis can fine-tune its PHAs to take on a wide range of properties – from soft and flexible, to hard and rigid.

He says this versatility could make PHAs “the holy grail of plastic replacement” in categories including packaging, medical tools, car parts, textiles and other commercial products.

While synthetic plastics can take centuries to degrade and pollute waterways with microplastics, PHA products that wind up in the landfill can safely degrade both on land and in water.

And when properly discarded, these bioplastics can be composted and upcycled into something new, Chiappetta says.

“This creates a circular end-of-life,” he says. “Our polymers, no matter where they end up, can be composted and fed back into the front-end of the process.”

Addressing two global challenges – food waste and plastic pollution – might seem like a daunting proposition, but Chiappetta urged community members taking part in U of T’s Entrepreneurship Week to aim high and not get discouraged.

“The big thing is to be curious, work hard and if things don’t work – keep trying,” he says.

“Oftentimes, things don’t work out the first time, and I think you learn most from the failures as opposed to the successes.”

Learn more about U of T Entrepreneurship Week

U of T Entrepreneurship Week 2023: Top 10 startups to watch

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 02 Mar 2023 16:01:59 +0000

U of T Entrepreneurship Week 2023: Top 10 startups to watch

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 03/02/2023 - 11:01

Cutline

(supplied images)

Mariam Matti

Topic

Our Community

Black Founders Network

Entrepreneurship Week

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Entrepreneurship

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy

Psychology

Self-Driving Cars

St. Michael's Hospital

Startups

U of T Mississauga

U of T Scarborough

A plant-based alternative to conventional plastic. Using drones to tackle reforestation in wildfire-ravaged locations. And a new generation of self-driving technologies that leverage the full potential of artificial intelligence.

These are just some innovative ideas that have emerged from the University of Toronto’s entrepreneurship community in recent years.

Ranked one of the top five university business incubators in the world, U of T Entrepreneurship is set to celebrate these and other startups, as well as their founders, during its annual U of T Entrepreneurship Week from March 6 to 9. The schedule includes pitch competitions, workshops, panel discussions and the popular True Blue Expo, which will feature the founders of more than 40 of U of T’s top startups.

Another highlight: Raquel Urtasun, founder and CEO of Waabi and a U of T professor of computer science, will discuss lessons learned while building her self-driving vehicle company at the Desjardins Speakers Series on March 9.

Here are 10 exciting U of T startups to keep an eye on in 2023:

Arma Biosciences

The ability to give patients agency over their own health monitoring was one of the reasons Surath Gomis co-founded Arma Biosciences. The startup’s goal is to develop a new sensor technology for biomarker-informed digital health care. In partnership with Analog Devices, work on the company’s first product is underway – a handheld finger-prick blood test for patients with heart failure.

With a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from U of T, Gomis established the company in 2020 with his supervisor Shana Kelley, a researcher in U of T’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy and Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

Gomis hopes future products will include wearable, implantable and ingestible sensors for monitoring applications.

Erthos

U of T alumnae Nuha Siddiqui and Kritika Tyagi are working to transform the plastic industry for the better. In 2018, the pair co-founded Erthos, a company that offers fully biodegradable plant-based material as a replacement for single-use plastics.

Erthos creates resins using materials that are both compostable and microplastic-free – and compatible with existing manufacturing technology. Siddiqui and Tyagi recently made the Forbes list of 30 under 30 in the social impact category, which noted that Erthos has raised more than US$5.5 million in funding.

TransCrypts

Ali Zaheer and Zain Zaidi co-founded TransCrypts to transform digital privacy and security. Back in 2020, they set out to answer a simple question: “Why can’t consumers own their important documentation digitally and in a way that can be easily verified?”

TransCrypts – which took home a $10,000 second-place startup prize at a U of T pitch competition during last year’s Entrepreneurship Week – is a blockchain-based document verification platform that gives people direct access to their official documents, such as medical records. Supported by U of T Scarborough’s The Hub, Zaheer and Zaidi have already helped thousands of Ukrainian refugees access medical records through a pilot project and landed US$2.4 million in funding from backers including Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban.

Waabi

A world-leading expert in machine learning and computer vision, Raquel Urtasun was inspired to start Waabi when she recognized a need for a new generation of self-driving technologies that leverage AI’s full potential. Backed by high-profile investors, including Volvo and Uber, the company is leading the way when it comes to the next generation of self-driving solutions.

The company recently launched Waabi World, an advanced simulator to test its autonomous vehicles, and Waabi Driver, its first generation of self-driving trucks. Urtasun says she focused on the long-haul trucking sector because it’s one of the most dangerous occupations – not to mention an industry that suffers from a shortage of drivers.

WooYourBoo

Husband-and-wife co-founders La Vance and Colleen Dotson – head coach of the U of T Track & Field Club – are the entrepreneurial force behind a slick dating app for people already in relationships.

WooYourBoo aims to help partners reconnect and better communicate with each other through quizzes, activities and rewards.

“Our goal is to create depth and help you reconnect with this person that you’ve committed to – and make it fun,” Colleen recently told U of T News.

The Dotsons say that U of T’s Black Founders Network was instrumental in building WooYourBoo, which was among the inaugural cohort of the BFN Accelerate Program.

OTI Lumionics

OTI Lumionics could change the look of the smartphone in your pocket.

Founded by U of T alumnus Michael Helander, the company has been working on expanding its line of organic LED technology solutions – including smartphone screens that are uninterrupted by notches, which are currently needed to house front-facing cameras and other equipment in some smartphone designs.

The company, which was spun out of research at U of T, has collaborated with Microsoft Quantum and, most recently, their name has been connected to Apple as a key supplier for a future notch-free iPhone.

Flash Forest

Flash Forest, a startup with ties to U of T Mississauga, is fighting climate change and restoring forests by leveraging the use of drones, AI, geographic information systems and plant science technology.

The company – which received support from U of T’s Mississauga’s ICUBE incubator – recently inked a federal contract to use drones to plant more than one million trees over the next two years in wildfire-ravaged locations across Canada.

The co-founders, brothers Bryce and Cameron Jones, say they are focused on restoring severe wildfire sites where the seed pods and cones are lost.

Signal 1

Signal 1 is looking to transform health care by equipping doctors and nurses with real-time AI predictions.

The company, co-founded by CEO Tomi Poutanen, a U of T alumnus, and Mara Lederman, professor of strategic management at the Rotman School of Management, has built a machine learning tool called CHARTWatch that can help predict how much support a patient will need.

The tool was originally developed at St. Michael’s Hospital by a team led by Signal 1's clinical adviser Muhammad Mamdani, who is vice-president of data science and advanced analytics at Unity Health Toronto and holds cross-appointments at U of T’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

The surgical unit at St. Michael’s Hospital has already begun using CHARTWatch to help care teams communicate and make decisions.

Mounib Real Food Only

When U of T Scarborough alumna Iman Mounib encountered gut health issues, she took it upon herself to create products that are free of refined sugars, palm oils, gluten and dairy.

She founded Mounib Real Food Only, which sells a chocolate hazelnut spread made of just three local ingredients. The company also makes a peanut chocolate spread, as well as an almond chocolate version. Mounib’s goal was to create alternatives to popular products that are both tasty and good for you.

The products are sold in almost 20 restaurants, cafes and stores in the Greater Toronto Area, as well as one location in Ottawa.

HippoCamera

HippoCamera is a smartphone application that helps to improve memory recall, which could be beneficial for individuals in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of memory impairment.

Backed by years of research at U of T, the app has an easy-to-use interface and is a personalized way to boost recall of daily experiences and enhance activity in the hippocampus, a part of the brain that plays a key role in memory.

Morgan Barense, a professor in the department of psychology in the Faculty of Arts & Science and co-author of a recent study on the technology, said her team found that memories that were associated with the HippoCamera were long-lasting – and that the device worked for both healthy older adults and those starting to show cognitive decline.

Learn more about U of Entrepreneurship Week

From spikeball to affordable meds, U of T Scarborough startups aim to change the game

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 20:50:39 +0000

From spikeball to affordable meds, U of T Scarborough startups aim to change the game

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 02/23/2023 - 15:50

Cutline

Donovan Dill, who leads operations at U of T Scarborough's The Hub incubator, addresses the crowd at the incubator's annual pitch competition (all photos by One Take Entertainment)

Alexa Battler

Topic

Our Community

U of T Entrepreneurship

From mental health and medicines to spikeball and cosmetics, startup founders sought to impress judges with their innovative ideas at a recent pitch competition hosted by The Hub, an entrepreneurial incubator at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

“This year’s pitch competition really showcased innovative solutions to some of the world’s most common challenges,” says Donovan Dill, who leads operations at The Hub. “We are very proud of this year’s cohort, who are now in residence at The Hub.”

Here are some of the entrepreneurs who walked away with cash prizes to help build their budding businesses.

Meds for Less

“Like Amazon for medicines”

Aliya Ali Shaikha's start-up Meds for Less, which won $10,000, created an app that lets users order drugs from pharmacies in India.

Aliya Ali Shaikha didn’t realize how expensive medicine can be until her father had to reduce his health insurance – but she spotted an opportunity when she discovered the drugs he needed were almost 70 per cent cheaper if ordered and shipped from India.

“People are literally suffering because medicines are so expensive,” says Shaikha, a third-year neuroscience student at the University of Toronto Scarborough and the founder of startup Meds for Less. “If we can connect them to Indian pharmacies, it’s a game-changer.”

Meds For Less has an app featuring 140,000 Indian drugs that are at least 50 per cent cheaper than those at the non-Indian pharmacies Shaikha researched. Within roughly 72 hours of uploading a prescription, a partner pharmacy in India fills the order and the drugs arrive at a customer’s doorstep.

“We are like an Amazon for medicines,” says Shaikha, an international student from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The company is currently operating in the UAE and is targeting Canada next, with a goal of reaching any place in need of affordable medicine.

“I came to Canada because I heard about free health care, but I learned that provincial health insurance doesn’t even cover prescription drugs,” says Shaikha. “We want to make sure that no one has to compromise on their health because of cost.”

Bash Roundnet

A straightforward spikeball solution

Shayne Gryba demonstrates his spikeball net at The Hub's annual pitch competition.

Playing roundnet, a sport commonly known as “spikeball,” involves hitting a ball onto a trampoline-like net until the ball touches the ground or the net’s rim. Things get complicated when players hit a pocket – the slightly saggy part of the net next to the rim.

“In other sports the boundaries are clear; in tennis there's a two-inch white line and ping-pong has the edges of a table. For spikeball, the boundary is fuzzy,” says Shayne Gryba, who recently finished his PhD in theoretical physics at U of T.

Gryba’s solution? He developed a net with a uniformly bouncy surface and no pockets. His model can be put together 10 times faster than the traditional version without losing its consistent tension. It fits into a small backpack and the rim is outfitted with pieces that make a distinct noise when touched.

His start-up, Bash Roundnet, is looking for investors while he continues honing the model.

mhapy

Proactive mental health chatbot

Chijindu Ukagwu drew on his experience as a mental health nurse to create his startup.

Chijindu Ukagwu, a mental health nurse, wants to automate mental health screenings without losing the feeling of conversation patients get from interactions with health-care staff.

So, he founded mhapy, a startup with a chatbot named Ruby that has open-ended conversations while subtly completing mental health status exams. Over time, Ruby detects a user’s baseline mood and symptoms. If the user’s mental health begins to worsen, the chatbot notifies their support system – be it a friend, family member or mental health professional.

“We are democratizing access to mental health chatbots,” says says Ukagwu, a master’s student at U of T. “With our software, any psychotherapist or mental health organization will be able to get a version of our chatbot and share it with patients.”

mhapy has been training Ruby on more than 2,000 conversations totalling more than 18,000 messages. The company is also working on a feature to connect users with similar symptoms, expanding their support network.

Beau Beauty

A smarter way to buy cosmetics

The Beau Beauty team, from left to right: Joshua Raphael, Kritika Pandey, Didier Ramazani and Benny Liao.

Some cosmetics retailers let customers “try on” makeup using virtual filters, but the team at Beau Beauty hasn’t been impressed with the accuracy of these simple overlays.

“Especially for people of colour, the virtual makeup try-ons are mismatching skin tone and colour,” says Joshua Raphael, a graduate of the bachelor of business administration program.

The team is training an AI model to better recognize skin qualities and facial features and use augmented reality to show what products will really look like on faces. Users will be able to try on multiple cosmetics at once, get recommendations and add products straight to their cart.

The potential impacts aren’t skin-deep – the team’s research found one in four product returns are for cosmetics, which end up in landfills.

“There are developing countries where people are living next to piles of makeup returns,” says Kritika Pandey, who graduated with a degree in finance and statistics. “We can make sure people get the right product.”

Startup brings blockchain to Ukrainian refugees, lands US$2.4 million in funding

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 21:30:58 +0000

Startup brings blockchain to Ukrainian refugees, lands US$2.4 million in funding

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 02/09/2023 - 16:30

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Ali Zaheer (left) and Zain Zaidi co-founded TransCrypts to give people direct access to official documents such as medical records and income verification forms (supplied image)

Topic

For many, blockchain is best known as the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies. But startup company TransCrypts is using it to give people more control over their personal information – including refugees who fled Ukraine.

A document verification platform, TransCrypts is making waves, recently landing US$2.4 million in funding from backers that included Mark Cuban.

At the helm are 23-year-old CEO Zain Zaidi and co-founder and chief technology officer Ali Zaheer, an alumnus of the University of Toronto. The pair developed the startup with the support of The Hub, U of T Scarborough’s entrepreneurial incubator.

“Our goal is to give you control of all your documents,” says Zaidi. “We can do away with this 20th-century way of verifying documents and create a world where I can instantly show you who I am, my employment and income history, and, hopefully one day, my criminal and medical history.”

The company, which also received initial funding via startup competitions organized by the The Hub and U of T Entrepreneurship last year, uses blockchain technology to break files into thousands of pieces, or blocks, and store them on computers around the world. The files are so thoroughly encrypted that even TransCrypts itself can’t access them without direct permission. For official documents, such as medical records, the credentials that make a file legitimate are converted into a block in its blockchain. Owners can share and access those verified files, but can’t alter them.

“One thing we really pride ourselves on is that we don’t store your data like a lot of big tech companies,” Zaidi says. “We consider ourselves like the postal service. We’re delivering the letter. We don't open it – we don’t know what’s inside, we’re just helping share it.”

In the case of the health-care system. Zaheer says providers often use different platforms to store electronic health records, leaving patients with a disjointed medical history scattered across clinics and hospitals.

“Patients are unable to easily take their complete health data and records with them if they change hospitals or relocate,” says Zaheer, a graduate of U of T Scarborough’s computer science program. “This makes it very hard for doctors to see the history and rationality of decisions made by previous doctors.”

Thousands of Ukrainian refugees access medical records with pilot project

TransCrypts is developing a way to let both patients and health-care providers easily access and share electronic health records via the blockchain. When the war in Ukraine broke out, the company worked with grassroots organizations helping refugees to set the idea in motion.

“A lot of refugees didn’t have their medical records and couldn’t contact hospitals that were now in a war zone,” Zaidi says. “They were receiving poor quality health care because they didn’t know the local language and couldn’t communicate, say, an allergy to a medication or a proxy condition that would impact treatment.”

TransCrypts’s pilot project let Ukrainian hospitals upload medical records straight to its virtual platform. Refugees were then able to view, access and share their records with health-care providers via QR codes and translate them into their host country’s language through a built-in feature. The project has given more than 4,000 refugees direct access to their medical records, which TransCrypt says resulted in significant increases to their quality of health care.

Blockchain-based service freeing up thousands of hours for HR departments

Zaidi says easy access to medical records would save patients from waiting for their files – not to mention the fees hospitals and clinics often charge to share them. The same logic applies to any official documents held by an organization. That includes criminal background checks and independently sharing school transcripts or confirmations of employment.

The same goes for getting a mortgage, lease or loan, which typically requires HR deparatments to send documents that verify income or employment. TransCrypts offers a service that integrates with an HR department’s existing software and lets employees access their own verification documents. Employees can then email their files straight to the third parties – with the email coming from their employer’s email address, adding to the validity.

The company says more than 100 organizations using TransCrypts collectively saved tens of thousands of hours last year that would have otherwise been spent filling employment and income verification requests.

“HR departments love us because they don't have to worry about filling these requests anymore,” Zaidi says, “and consumers love us because now they don't have to worry about being the middle person between HR and the bank.”

U of T among top five university business incubators in the world: UBI Global

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 06 Feb 2023 16:20:53 +0000

U of T among top five university business incubators in the world: UBI Global

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 02/06/2023 - 11:20

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The BRIDGE at U of T Scarborough is one of several entrepreneurship and innovation hubs on U of T's three campuses (photo by Matthew Dochstader)

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Creative Destruction Lab

Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship Hatchery

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Global

Health Innovation Hub

The University of Toronto has been recognized as one of the top five university business incubators in the world by UBI Global in its latest world benchmark study.

In its 2021-2022 study, UBI Global – a Swedish-based innovation intelligence company with more than 1,000 member organizations – assessed 1895 organizations from 90 countries.

The top organizations were benchmarked across 21 key performance indicators against their global peers based on the value they provide to their innovation ecosystems and client startups.

“The UBI ranking is a reinforcement of all the great work that so many U of T students, faculty and alumni entrepreneurs have been doing,” says Jon French, director of University of Toronto Entrepreneurship, the umbrella organization for the incubators, accelerators and entrepreneurship programs across U of T’s three campuses. “It’s a recognition of how we fare against the best in the world.”

The ranking is particularly notable, French adds, since UBI is one of the only organizations examining both economic and social impact in its global assessment of the post-secondary entrepreneurship space.

“The approach that UBI takes is quite holistic – they measure hard metrics, including funding raised and jobs created, but they also take a look at criteria such as where the mentor network is coming from and how engaged the university’s alumni are,” French says, noting that U of T scored high on all such indicators in the UBI report and takes pride in supporting innovators at all stages of their journey – everyone from idea-stage student entrepreneurs to faculty members and PhD researchers seeking to commercialize their work.

Over the past decade, U of T entrepreneurs have created more than 600 venture-backed companies and secured more than $2.5 billion in investment. U of T Entrepreneurship, for its part, supports current and aspiring entrepreneurs by providing: co-working, meeting and event spaces; mentorship and advisory supports; pitch competitions and prizes; and access to investor networks to secure funding.

U of T’s network of campus acccelerators and incubators in the Greater Toronto Area are currently supporting more than 500 teams working on potential startups.

“It is important that our entrepreneurs have a sense of community – they are surrounded by like-minded people who are excited about innovation and turning ideas and opportunities into companies,” French says. “Across the 10-plus campus accelerators on our three campuses, we currently have over 500 teams that are working on projects that could become companies.”

UBI’s world benchmark study is a third-party assessment, based on a comprehensive survey, that analyzes the impact and performance of business incubators and accelerators from four sectors: university, public, private and corporate. Its framework for analysis was developed in collaboration with an advisory board comprising innovation thought leaders and industry experts.

Other Canadian universities also ranked highly in their categories in the UBI report, including incubators from McGill University, York University, Memorial University and École de technologie supérieure.

Many of the U of T-backed success stories flagged for the UBI survey stemmed from the university’s strength in leading-edge research fields such as quantum computing, biotech, clean tech, advanced manufacturing and machine learning. In particular, French points to the recent announcement of $40 million in federal funding for U of T startup Xanadu Quantum Technologies – an alumnus of the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) at the Rotman School of Management that was founded by former U of T post-doctoral physics researcher Christian Weedbrook – and the more than 150 ventures supported annually by the Health Innovation Hub (H2i).

French noted that U of T’s commitment to entrepreneurship is longstanding, with several incubators and accelerators recently celebrating their 10-year anniversaries. They include CDL, The Hatchery at the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and the UTEST accelerator.

“And now when we look at the new Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus close to opening on the St. George campus, that’s again an example of U of T doubling down on how important innovation and entrepreneurship are to the university,” he says.

U of T’s world-leading innovation network – which includes U of T Scarborough’s The Hub and The BRIDGE, as well as U of T Mississauga’s ICUBE – will be showcased during Entrepreneurship Week from March 6 to 9, featuring more than 15 free in-person, hybrid and virtual public events to teach, inspire and celebrate entrepreneurship on campus.

One flagship event returning in-person for the first time in three years is the True Blue Expo on March 9, where more than 40 U of T startups, accelerators and community partners will be sharing information on their products and services.

“We’ll be highlighting groundbreaking companies during Entrepreneurship Week, including those led by women founders and startups connected to our Black Founders Network,” French says. “All three campuses are represented – it’s really a snapshot of what makes U of T entrepreneurship so special.”

'A doctor in the palm of our hands': Brother-sister duo create app to make virtual eye care possible in Bangladesh

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 15:12:53 +0000

'A doctor in the palm of our hands': Brother-sister duo create app to make virtual eye care possible in Bangladesh

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 10/19/2022 - 11:12

Cutline

Purnashree (left) and Pradipta Chowdhury have created an app to bring telehealth to eye doctors, while offering training and tracking features for eye care (Submitted photo)

Topic

A brother-sister duo’s start-up has partnered with one of the largest eye hospitals in Bangladesh in an effort to make trips to the eye doctor completely virtual.

Pradipta and Purnashree Chowdhury, who come from a family of eye doctors, created the EyeBuddy app to deliver the vision screenings and eye tests used in most check-ups.

“We’re trying to make a whole ecosystem where a patient just sitting in their house can call up an ophthalmologist,” says Pradipta, who graduated from the University of Toronto Scarborough last year and was recently accepted into medical school. “Anyone can have a doctor 24-7 for immediate and certain eye issues.”

The app will also bring telehealth to eye doctors in the coming months, connecting patients across Bangladesh with ophthalmologists at a major eye-care hospital.

“In developing countries, transportation is a massive deal. The top hospitals cannot provide services to remote areas,” says Pradipta, who aspires to be an ophthalmologist like his father. “But we can have a doctor in the palm of our hands.”

The siblings are working to make sure Bangladesh is only the first of many partnerships with hospitals around the world as their start-up continues growing out of The Hub, U of T Scarborough’s entrepreneurial incubator.

“EyeBuddy is moving quite rapidly with the full support of the community, the government and several top doctors in Bangladesh,” says Gray Graffam, former director of The Hub. “They’re tied into something that can go beyond Bangladesh and their current connections.”

For now, the rest of the world can access EyeBuddy’s other features, which aim to make eye care fun. Daily eye tests notify users of potential early vision loss and eye conditions while tracking the progress of each eye. The app also has more than 50 exercises that train all 12 eye muscles, and users can customize their training around conditions such as dry eye, lazy eye and macular degeneration. They can also earn points, unlock milestones and connect with others on the platform.

“It can be a very depressing thing to know you’re dealing with an eye condition or vision loss,” Pradipta says. “We are trying to build a huge community around people with similar eye conditions that can support each other.”

That community is quickly growing. The app has more than 17,000 subscribers and nearly 2,000 daily visitors from almost every continent. Though they designed EyeBuddy to appeal to all ages, the siblings also created a custom version for kids with more colours and games and fewer medical terms. They hope to eventually roll it out to schools across Canada.

Purnashree says childhood is a crucial time for eye development; it’s also when children may begin adapting to eye conditions instead of seeking help.

“Early detection would relieve a lot of financial burden on families. If a condition is chronic, treatment is long-term,” says Purnashree, who is a doctor in Bangladesh and is pursuing her licence to practice in Canada. “With lots of conditions, we can be saved from spending unnecessarily – if we can just pick it up early.”

The Chowdhurys had heartening results after testing EyeBuddy in elementary schools. A teacher reported students were playing with the app, unprompted, in the middle of class. One student discovered he was colourblind through EyeBuddy and later followed the app’s recommendation of going to an eye doctor.

“Health care is complicated. We wanted to make a friendly but scientific app so people can be aware of their eye health and protect their eyes in a way that’s not boring,” says Pradipta,

Pradipta and Purnashree’s father is the director of a major eye hospital in Bangladesh. As Pradipta prepares to attend medical school in the U.K., he and his sister say they are glad the app will keep them connected with each other and their father, who has been at the back of the business in an advisory role.

“Through this app, we have a purpose tying us together,” Purnashree says.

The Hub

The Hub

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Startup brings blockchain to Ukrainian refugees, lands US$2.4 million in funding

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U of T among top five university business incubators in the world: UBI Global

'A doctor in the palm of our hands': Brother-sister duo create app to make virtual eye care possible in Bangladesh