重口味SM

Student entrepreneurs talk shop with Ontario鈥檚 Lieutenant Governor

photo of Lieutenant Governor with students
(all photos by Lisa Sakulensky)

It鈥檚 not every day that eager student entrepreneurs get to sit down and talk with a representative of Her Majesty the Queen about the challenges of growing their fledgling businesses.

But current and former 重口味SM students Dikshant Batra (Nova Sentio); Christina Cai (Knowtions); Ryan Doherty (iamsick.ca); Bin Liu (iMerciv); and Rhea Puri (SoCity) were more than up to the challenge.

鈥淲hat is most exciting? What are you optimistic about and what keeps you at it?鈥 Ontario Lt.-Gov. Elizabeth Dowdeswell, a former university lecturer and executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, asked the students during their roundtable discussion.

The event was part of her May 17 visit to the St. George campus, which was focused on innovation and how the university is a world leader in producing important research, attracting top talent and instilling and supporting an entrepreneurial spirit in its students and faculty.

鈥淗er Honour has been to our campus many, many times but this is her first official visit. This is a special day for us,鈥 U of T president Meric Gertler said. 鈥淲e want to give you some stories today to tell and retell.鈥

Cai, who has her BA in philosophy and economics from U of T, is enjoying growing success with her company that shortens translation times for complex science textbooks and journals using a combination of top minds around the world and machine learning algorithms. 

鈥淭he fact of the matter is that being an entrepreneur is hard, it鈥檚 painful,鈥 she told the roundtable. 鈥淚 wanted to give up but I talked to another founder and laid all my troubles on her. She runs a billion-dollar business and she just said, 鈥楽o all the stones haven鈥檛 been unturned yet.鈥欌

Meaning, don鈥檛 panic. Keep going.

鈥淲hat drives me is the same thing the scares me: it鈥檚 the uncertainty. It鈥檚 an adventure,鈥 chimed in Liu, whose company has created Buzzclip to help people with visual impairments. The device, which looks like a button on your lapel, uses ultrasound to detect obstacles in the wearer鈥檚 path.

Read more about Buzzclip

Being an entrepreneur was never in the cards, Liu said, because he was meant to follow in his family鈥檚 footsteps and become a civil engineer. But fate intervened when he met Professor Cynthia Goh, the academic director of the Banting & Best Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (BBCIE) at U of T.

Now, he and his business partner are close to finding a Canadian distribution centre for their product and organizations supporting the visually impaired in 20 countries have expressed support for Buzzclip.

All five students credited U of T鈥檚 nine accelerators, such as the Impact Centre and I-CUBE, for helping them see the potential of their ideas and finding the right path to turn them into reality.
In 2015 alone, these accelerators worked with more than 225 student-led startup teams and supported more than 80 new companies that attracted nearly $20 million in investment and generated $2.5 million in sales.

鈥淚鈥檓 very thankful for what U of T has provided,鈥 said Puri, who is continuing to work on her website that pairs Torontonians with activities and restaurants that cater to their personal choices.

鈥淎s an international student, I never thought I鈥檇 have this level of acceptance鈥 and help from the university, said Batra, who came to U of T from India to study commerce. 鈥淢y father keeps asking me, 鈥楢re you sure they don鈥檛 want anything in return?鈥欌

Along with the roundtable, the lieutenant-governor also toured the Sidhu Lab in The Donnelly Centre, met and University Professor John Polanyi and helped present the U of T Invention of the Year Awards at the third annual U of T Celebrates Innovation event.

Read more about the Inventions of the Year

(Below: the winners with and Nobel Laureate John Polanyi and Professor Cynthia Goh)

photo of Polanyi, Goh and winning inventors

鈥淲e live in one of the most privileged places in the world,鈥 Dowdeswell told the crowd of about 200 people gathered for U of T Celebrates Innovation.

鈥淲e have wonderful intellectual capabilities and we have a wonderful wealth of natural resources 鈥 We are the envy of much of the world.鈥

And yet, she said, most Ontarians have no idea of the research and innovations that are happening in their province at world-leading institutions like U of T 鈥 research that鈥檚 helping find real solutions to the needs of society.

Appointing herself as the province鈥檚 new 鈥渃hief storyteller鈥 the lieutenant-governor said the university needs to do a better job to 鈥済et these stories out to the average person on the street鈥 so they know what we鈥檙e good at in Ontario and can be proud of what we are.

鈥淚鈥檇 be happy to be one of the tools to get that message across,鈥 she offered.

(Pictured below: Dowdeswell and Goh)

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