Startups

Entrepreneurship Week

Entrepreneurship

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

U of T Scarborough

Subheadline

U of T Entrepreneurship's annual pitch competition has helped accelerate the growth of several innovative and promising startups

When you’re a startup founder, a little extra cash can be the difference between going big – or going out of business.

“The first major expenses we needed for our company, I charged to my credit card. Starting a business when you’re 22 years old can be stressful,” explains Zain Zaidi, co-founder of TransCrypts, a document verification platform that got its start at the University of Toronto.

In an effort to ensure that more early-stage companies have the chance to grow, U of T Entrepreneurship (UTE) has held an annual pitch competition each year during Entrepreneurship Week – an event now known as the Desjardins Startup Prize.

The competition – which, in recent years, has been part of a broader partnership with Desjardins Group and includes an annual Speaker Series – offers more than $100,000 in prizes, ranging from $5,000 for third place in the early-stage category to $40,000 for first place in the late-stage category. There is also a people’s choice award.

Marilyn Horrick, Desjardin's senior vice-president, market growth, brand expansion and partner relations outside Quebec, shakes hands with U of T President Meric Gertler at a Desjardins Speaker Series event (photo by Alyssa K. Faoro)

“Entrepreneurs are incredible drivers for innovation when they get the resources they need,” says Guy Cormier, president and CEO of Desjardins Group. “Desjardins Group is empowering young, ambitious minds to turn big ideas into solutions that make a positive impact in their communities.

“The guidance they get from UTE to help them do that is invaluable.”

With the Desjardins Startup Prize accepting applications until Nov. 29, here are startups that have won previously won awards at the U of T-hosted pitch competition – and then went on to enjoy future success.

Genecis Bioindustries

Luna Yu, the founder of Genecis Bioindustries, competed in the early-stage category in 2018 (photo by Don Campbell)

Genecis Bioindustries founder Luna Yu competed for the top startup prize in 2018 in the early-stage category. At the time, Genecis was working on securing patents and developing its core technology of turning food waste into biodegradable plastics. The company didn’t have any commercial adopters or investors but was working to build partnerships and validate its technology with their stakeholders.

“Winning the prize was a turning point for us at Genecis,” says Yu. “It provided the resources and recognition we needed to move from an idea to a growing company and it validated the potential impact of our technology on a larger scale.”

Genecis invested the prize money in key areas such as research and development, team growth and infrastructure to scale production of its product.

Since its big win in 2018, Genecis has scaled its proprietary technology, secured high-profile investments from Amazon and Khosla Ventures, and earned several government grants, totalling $35 million. Genecis also recently launched the consumer-brand “Mad Tea” to commercialize biopolymers.

TransCrypts

Ali Zaheer (left) and Zain Zaidi co-founded TransCrypts (supplied image)

TransCrypts co-founders Ali Zaheer and Zain Zaidi competed for the startup prize in 2022 as a late-stage company. Back then, they had raised just US$200,000 and were in the beta testing stage.

The company, which is helping to automate HR workflows, was co-founded in 2020 amidst the COVID-19 pandemic – a time when its founders questioned if the future they were building this company for would even exist.

“Winning this prize told me that maybe the idea I was working on wasn’t a bad one. It told me the thousands of hours and the years of work wasn’t for nothing,” says Zaidi. “This competition gave me the validation that this is what I should put my efforts towards.

“It told me to shoot for the stars and continue building this company.”

TransCrypts invested their prize money into rapidly prototyping and improving the product and hiring developers. Zaidi describes the competition as “great practice for pitching,” saying the experience was his introduction to the real world.

TransCrypts stands out for its commitment to giving back. Last year, Zaidi and Zaheer built a medical record database that helped hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine and Turkey receive quality health care despite war and uncertainty.

Fast forward to 2024, TransCrypts is an alumnus of the globally recognized Techstars program, has raised US$4 million and is backed by investors including Mark Cuban.

HDAX Therapeutics

Nabanita Nawar (photo by Matthew Volpe)

HDAX Therapeutics delivers meaningful medicine to unlock the full therapeutic potential of drugs and improve quality of life for patients suffering from neurological and cardiometabolic diseases.

Co-founder Nabanita Nawar competed for the prize in the late-stage category in 2022. Back then, HDAX Therapeutics had just incorporated, filed their first patent and raised some non-dilutive funding.

“This was one of the biggest recognitions for us,” says Nawar of the prize’s impact on herself and her co-founder Pimyupa Manaswiyoungkul. “The impact that this award had was huge. It really got people to recognize who we are in the U of T and Toronto ecosystems. It set the stage for our next big wins and the relationships that we were building… The startup prize was a great kick-start to help all the pieces of the puzzle come together,”

HDAX Therapeutics recently closed its seed funding round, which raised over $5 million, while both Nawar and Manaswiyoungkul – immigrants and scientists-turned-entrepreneurs – are listed on Forbes magazine’s 30 under 30 list.

Xatoms

Diana Virgovicova, Xatoms founder and CEO, pitches her company to a panel of judges at the Desjardins Startup Prize (photo by Alyssa K. Faoro)

Xatoms is on a mission to bring clean water to underrepresented groups around the world using the power of AI and quantum chemistry.

Diana Virgovicova, the company’s co-founder, competed for the prize in the early-stage category earlier this year – at which point Xatoms was very focused on research and development.

“The Desjardins Startup Prize showed me to believe in my business and the impact we are making. It encouraged me to think bigger,” says Virgovicova, who has received many awards and recognitions, including an award of excellence from the royal family in Sweden. “It opened so many doors for Xatoms – opportunities that helped grow our business tenfold.”

Within just a span of seven months, Xatoms reached the final round of the Hult Prize, becoming the first Canadian team in over a decade to do so. It also collected over $500,000 in awards at StartupFest in Montreal and recently received the Clean 50 Emerging Leader Award.

Virgovicova, along with co-founder Kerem Topal Ismail Oglou and Shirley Zhong, currently has three water purification pilot operations in Kenya, South Africa and the United States.

From left to right: Marilyn Horrick, Diana Virgovicova and U of T Entrepreneurship Director Jon French holding a $15,000 cheque for Xatoms (photo by Alyssa K. Faoro)

Going digital to save lives: U of T grad student aims to eliminate barriers to health care

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 13:40:31 +0000

Going digital to save lives: U of T grad student aims to eliminate barriers to health care

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 10/07/2024 - 09:40

Cutline

Naturinda Emmanuel, a Mastercard Scholar who grew up in Uganda, studies intelligent medicine and electronic medical records at U of T's Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (supplied image)

Tina Adamopoulos

Topic

Global Lens

Black Research Network

Africa

Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Subheadline

Naturinda Emmanuel, a scholar and entrepreneur, says the digitization of medical records, when coupled with AI, will reduce errors in patient care and help spot public health threats before they occur

Growing up in Uganda, Naturinda Emmanuel aspired to be a medical doctor and health leader who eliminates barriers to health-care access for those in underserved, remote communities.

“I always wanted to address different health-care issues in my country – that is my motivation,” he says. “I want to gain the skills and expertise to strengthen health-care systems to ensure that those who need care can receive it.”

Naturinda (his surname) is now a graduate student at the University of Toronto, where he studies intelligent medicine and electronic medical records in the master of health informatics program at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health's Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME).

He’s also actively involved with the startup community, having launched a successful, impact-focused enterprise in Uganda and training other entrepreneurs.

Naturinda joined IHPME with the support of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program, a global education initiative focused on the next generation of African leaders, and Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative (AHEHC), a partnership between U of T, the Mastercard Foundation and leading African universities. The AHEHC was established in 2022 to drive primary health-care workforce education, entrepreneurship and innovation across Africa.

This is Naturinda’s second time studying abroad with the Mastercard Foundation. He became the first in his family to study outside the country when he was awarded a scholarship to pursue an undergraduate degree in laboratory medicine at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana.

He later returned home during the COVID-19 pandemic to volunteer in the clinical microbiology and immunology departments at a local hospital. The experience prompted him to think about how to improve systems that were suddenly facing new pressures at already burdened hospitals – namely the continued use of paper records.

Medical records are the building blocks for developing efficient and effective intelligent medicine models, he says, while intelligent medicine refers to the use of machine learning models to process medical data and reduce errors in patient care. Large datasets may also allow medical professionals to spot health patterns – an emerging epidemic, for example – to better prepare for public health threats.

However, low-to-middle-income countries face many barriers to digitizing medical data, including limited access to technology and the absence of standardized data formats. The use of paper records also causes delays in retrieving laboratory results and makes it difficult to understand patients’ medical histories efficiently.

“The digitization of medical records is essential for developing and training predictive models,” Naturinda says. “Unique electronic datasets from these communities provide the more accurate and reliable information needed to account for unique socio-cultural factors and effectively develop models tailored to address those specific challenges.”

Naturinda will work under the guidance of Karim Keshavjee, an assistant professor and director of the master of health informatics program. In addition to intelligent medicine, Naturinda says he also has a key interest in implementation science, or the study of methods to ensure research is translated into policy, programs and startups.

One of Canada’s few professional graduate programs in the field, the master of health informatics program provides students with the skills and strategic vision to take on leadership positions in health-care landscape.

The opportunity to learn industry-specific knowledge from health leaders is what made the program a perfect fit, Naturinda says.

“One of the reasons I chose the MHI program is because it is training us to be leaders, innovators and policymakers. I wanted to seek mentorship from people who were making a big impact in strengthening health-care systems in Canada.”

Public health isn’t the only field where Naturinda is hoping to make an impact. He also wants to help others as an entrepreneur – a journey that’s already well underway.

During his undergrad, he co-founded the Nugget Poultry Farm to help smallholder farmers in western Uganda raise poultry more effectively and improve food access back home. The venture aims to support 1,000 farmers in 20 communities by 2027 and has received a Social Venture Challenge Award from the Mastercard Foundation and the Resolution Project.

Naturinda enhanced his business knowledge through the Jim Leech Mastercard Foundation Fellowship on Entrepreneurship at Queen’s University. Now a program coach, he has trained more than 500 entrepreneurs from Africa-based startups addressing various issues in agribusiness, climate change and health care.

Naturinda is eager to tap into U of T’s network of entrepreneurs and has wasted no time reaching out to various groups, including the Black Founders Network.

“When I train entrepreneurs, I see the impact of them pitching their ventures or winning a grant. It’s the type of impact that I want to see with my research, and bridging those two passions is an ideal step forward,” Naturinda says.

“As I progress at U of T, I look forward to leveraging opportunities that speak to my background in entrepreneurship, health care and research to make sure that I implement them together.”

U of T ranked 13th on list of 50 schools transforming entrepreneurship: Fast Company

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 15:01:18 +0000

U of T ranked 13th on list of 50 schools transforming entrepreneurship: Fast Company

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 10/03/2024 - 11:01

Cutline

(photo by Polina Teif)

Topic

Global Lens

Rankings

Research & Innovation

Entrepreneurship Hatchery

The University of Toronto has earned the 13th spot in a new ranking by Inc. and Fast Company magazines that highlights the top 50 institutions transforming entrepreneurship.

The Ignition Schools list highlights academic institutions from around the world with the biggest impact on business and ideas that define the future, writes Brendan Vaughan, the editor-in-chief of Fast Company. He said the 50 schools in the inaugural list “don’t just produce elite students and groundbreaking research; they also are economic engines that generate the ideas, businesses, and opportunities that move cities, regions, and countries toward a better future.”

The list’s methodology assesses how the schools foster new technologies and industries while nurturing the individuals and companies that bring them to market. Out of a pool of approximately 900 institutions, schools were scored based on factors such as their performance in producing founders and entrepreneurs, companies launched by students and alumni and the amount of venture capital raised.

Having created more than 650 companies with the support of 12 accelerators, U of T was the highest ranked Canadian university on the Ignition Schools list.

3D-printed soil? U of T startup expands sustainable urban farming footprint in Toronto

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 15:07:18 +0000

3D-printed soil? U of T startup expands sustainable urban farming footprint in Toronto

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 09/11/2024 - 11:07

Cutline

Leo Hua and Adnan Sharif show off fresh basil that was grown with Lyrata’s sustainable farming system at Toronto’s Casa Loma (photo by Liz Intac)

Topic

Sustainability

U of T Scarborough

Subheadline

With new installations at Casa Loma and U of T Scarborough, Lyrata is supplying freshly grown produce to local caterers and restaurants

A startup co-founded by a University of Toronto graduate student has its roots in an experience that is all too common for many of us.

He kept forgetting to water his plants.

“I was working in a plant immunity biology lab, so if I didn’t water them, I’d have no plants to do experiments with,” says Adnan Sharif, who is pursuing a master’s degree in the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

He says his solution was inspired by his father.

“My dad is a mechanical engineering professor at a university in Japan, and he knows a lot about manufacturing materials with porous, three-dimensional structures,” he says. “That’s how I got the idea to make my own 3D-printed soil construct, which could retain water for a week or more.

“That way, I wouldn’t have to go into the lab and water the plants so often.”

The innovation – which Sharif came up as an undergraduate working in the lab of Keiko Yoshioka, a professor in the department of cell and systems biology in U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science – is one of several that now underpins Lyrata, a startup that grows fresh produce for caterers and high-end restaurants across the Greater Toronto Area.

The company, which got its start in a greenhouse on U of T’s St. George campus, has recently expanded with operations at U of T Scarborough and Casa Loma, a museum, event space and historic site in midtown Toronto.

Growing plants without soil, known as hydroponics, is a technique commonly used in greenhouses worldwide. But Sharif and his team see an opportunity to make the industry more sustainable, starting with the soil replacement that the plants grow in.

“The product that almost everyone uses today is basically the same as house insulation,” Sharif says. “It’s made from rocks that are mined in remote places and shipped hundreds of kilometres to a production facility, where they are heated to thousands of degrees in a giant furnace to make a porous, chemically inert material. This material then needs to be shipped again to where it’s needed, and when you’re finished, you throw it in the garbage.”

By contrast, Lyrata’s SmartSoil is 3D-printed using biopolymers such as polylactic acid, which is derived from corn. These materials can be locally sourced and require much lower temperatures to melt and form into porous structures.

When the growing cycle is complete, the product goes through a low-heat proprietary cleaning process and can be used again. Sharif says that SmartSoil has a total lifespan of about two years, after which it can be composted along with crop residue. Together, these changes greatly lower the carbon footprint of indoor farming.

In 2020, Sharif and his co-founders brought his idea to The Entrepreneurship Hatchery, U of T Engineering’s startup incubator and one of several entrepreneurship hubs across U of T’s three campuses. Through the Hatchery’s Nest process, they were connected with business mentors, including alumnus Xavier Tang, a consultant and venture capitalist who still advises the company today.

Over the next few years, the team evolved, with some original members leaving and others joining. They include Leo Hua, who has been pivotal to speeding the development of 3D printable soil. The concept evolved, too, as the team realized that producing food was a better business for Lyrata than rather than selling their growth medium to other farmers.

The Hatchery team – in particular, Executive Director Joseph Orozco, Go-To-Market Lead Erika J. Murray and a team of work-study students, mentors and legal externs – helped Lyrata develop their technology and business. In 2022, the Hatchery provided $155,000 in seed funding, enabling the founders to be employed by their company and further supporting business development. The funding also enabled the company to rent greenhouse space on campus, where they began growing lettuce to provide to Spaces and Experiences at U of T.

Lyrata also developed something new: a modular unit that works exclusively with their SmartSoil and contains everything required to produce a variety of indoor crops – from lights and growth medium to irrigation systems.

“None of these technological and business developments would have taken place without the generous support of the over 50 Hatchery mentors, work-study students, and legal externs who contributed to our success,” says Sharif.

“Our current concept is what we call farming-as-a-service,” Hua adds. “The SmartGrow unit we developed is small enough to fit into a standard parking spot. Our clients sign a contract with us to place a unit on their site and we take care of everything from planting to harvesting.

“For a flat fee, they get a self-contained farm that provides a reliable quantity of their desired crop over a set period of time.”

In addition to providing a locally sourced, sustainable product, Sharif says the approach can also help mitigate fluctuations in the price of wholesale produce.

“In Canada, most of our lettuce comes from California, which has been dealing with drought and many other issues,” says Sharif. “Supply chain disruptions due to COVID-19 were also a big challenge for restaurants, which have very thin margins to begin with. At one point, the price of lettuce increased by a factor of six, so you can imagine the effect that would have.”

So far, Lyrata has produced more than 15 different types of crops, including basil, parsley and mizuna, also known as Japanese mustard greens.

Support from the U of T Engineering community has been key to Lyrata’s success.

For example, it was a U of T Engineering alumni connection that recently led to Lyrata launching an installation at the historic Casa Loma museum and landmark in Toronto.

“Lyrata’s competitive edge is that they provide an on-site, full service and they do not take up very much space,” says Nikol Watlikiewicz, Casa Loma’s horticulture and grounds manager. “In a small corner of our potting shed, we were able to build two grow units that provide a good yield weekly, without having to train our staff on the complicated system.

“Growing indoors gives us the stability and control that traditional agriculture does not. It’s an excellent example of how engineers can help solve the global food crisis with innovative thinking.”

In August, Lyrata launched another growing unit at U of T Scarborough, located within the Harmony Commons Dining Hall.

The priority for the next few years is growing Lyrata’s crop offerings and client base with ongoing support from The Hatchery. The incubator has facilitated graduate student placements through Mitacs, with matching funds. It also backed a recent $167,500 project with the Ontario and Canadian governments through the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership program to further advance the yield and efficiency of the SmartSoil system.

“The fact we’ve been able to come this far in such a short time is in large part due to the help we’ve had from U of T Engineering, and especially the Entrepreneurship Hatchery,” says Sharif.

“Whether it was getting seed funding, finding mentors, hiring work-study students or making important connections through their alumni network, we wouldn’t be here without their support.”

U of T startup Honeybee acquired by global clinical trials firm Leapcure

rahul.kalvapalle — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 14:55:48 +0000

U of T startup Honeybee acquired by global clinical trials firm Leapcure

rahul.kalvapalle Fri, 08/16/2024 - 10:55

Cutline

(photo courtesy of Leapcure)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Health Innovation Hub

Impact Centre

ONRamp

Subheadline

Co-founded by Catherine Chan and Weiwei Li, Honeybee Trials' platform helps clinical trial recruiters find, screen and manage patients for their research

Honeybee Trials, a University of Toronto startup that connects research teams with patients and study participants, has been acquired by global clinical trials company Leapcure in a deal that is poised to drive more inclusive and affordable trials that’s ultimately applicable to a broader population.

Co-founded by U of T alumni Catherine Chan and Weiwei Li, Honeybee built a web and mobile platform to help clinical trial teams attract, screen, recruit and manage study participants. Since its founding in 2019, the startup has connected over 30,000 patients and participants to more than 1,000 clinical trials across North America.

Leapcure, headquartered in California, offers an array of solutions that combines people-backed services with data-driven technologies to fill clinical trials for global sponsors and CROs, but can now expand affordable patient recruitment to institutional sites, private sites and biotech firms. Moreover, their work alongside patients and advocacy groups has significantly helped to reach underrepresented communities – a focus that will receive a boost following the purchase of Honeybee.

Chan, who earned a master’s degree in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine’s department of nutritional sciences, says the deal grew out of a desire to partner strategically with a larger company that could provide access to broader sectors within the clinical research world.

Catherine Chan (L) and Weiwei Li (supplied image)

“At Honeybee, we offered competitive pricing for academic and hospital sites, local CROs [contract research organizations] and biotech firms,” Chan says. “With this partnership, we’re able to provide services across all of the different types of trial scopes and sizes.”

She adds that both Honeybee and Leapcure have placed a strong focus on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility by helping researchers attract study participants of different ethnicities, ages, genders and sexual orientations – helping make clinical trials more equitable and reflective of the wider population.

“It’s important to us that there's a mission and vision alignment between the companies... it couldn’t be a better fit,” Chan said.

The asset purchase deal for an undisclosed amount, which was announced in an Aug. 13 press release, will see Chan transition from CEO of Honeybee to senior director of product at Leapcure.

“We’re excited to join forces with Catherine and Honeybee. They’ve been really focused on the newest recruitment technologies that are most impactful for both patients and research,” said Leapcure CEO Zachary Gobst. “A big reason that things came together was our alignment on impact first. It’s a credit to how they’ve been approaching their business the right way from the beginning."

Honeybee evolved out of the frustrations that Chan faced in recruiting study participants for her master’s thesis. Motivated to explore solutions, Chan created a prototype that would help match participants with trials; she then enrolled in a one-week accelerator program in the Impact Centre (now the Centre for Entrepreneurship) in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

She soon teamed up with Li, who earned his bachelor’s and master’s of applied science degrees from the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, to co-found Honeybee. The startup later joined the Health Innovation Hub (H2i) accelerator and operated out of office space in U of T Entrepreneurship’s ONRamp facility prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

With COVID-19 measures encouraging the adoption of digital tools by clinical research teams, Honeybee found itself well-placed to play an important role. “The pandemic provided an opportunity for many tech companies to scale as the market became more open-minded and ready to adopt technologies to help connect them day-to-day," Chan says. "We saw a rapid adoption of Honeybee’s technology during this time where people moved away from traditional recruitment and patient communications to the current age.

“Although digital adoption across other industries has grown quite rapidly, healthcare has lagged behind, rightfully so and for many reasons, but we’re glad the transformation is happening. Just five years ago, clinical trial coordinators were still using paper handouts to recruit on the street and paper calendars to schedule patients.

“The pandemic expedited researchers being able to meet people where they are.”

Chan says the acquisition by Leapcure will enable the rollout of tiered services ranging from low-cost, self-serve tiers – targeting research teams with more modest budgets – to higher levels of service that include dedicated management.

“I’m really excited about the solutions we now have to offer together as well as the next steps in how we’re going to disrupt clinical trials.”

Professor Paul Santerre, co-founder and director of H2i, hailed Chan as "a model outcome" of the accelerator's mission to empower innovators in translating their ideas into products and companies that tackle important problems.

“Catherine and her team’s achievements are transformative in terms of democratizing the recruitment of patients for clinical study cohorts," said Santerre, the Baxter Chair for Health Technology and Commercialization at the University Health Network and professor in the Faculty of Dentistry and Institute of Biomedical Engineering who is cross-appointed to the department of chemical engineering and applied chemistry.

"She has much to still teach us about the power of digital tools and their ethical use to achieve impact in clinical research trials – and this acquisition will accelerate that outcome."

Startup Job Board

laurie.bulchak — Fri, 26 Jul 2024 01:47:59 +0000

Startup Job Board laurie.bulchak Thu, 07/25/2024 - 21:47

URL

https://jobs.entrepreneurs.utoronto.ca/jobs

With U of T innovators front and centre, Collision conference wraps up five-year Toronto run

rahul.kalvapalle — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 14:52:23 +0000

With U of T innovators front and centre, Collision conference wraps up five-year Toronto run

rahul.kalvapalle Fri, 06/21/2024 - 10:52

Cutline

U of T alumna Nuha Siddiqui, co-founder and CEO of Erthos, on stage at the Collision tech conference (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Adina Bresge

Topic

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

Faculty of Arts & Science

Alumni

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science

Geoffrey Hinton

Innovations & Partnerships Office

Research & Innovation

Department of Computer Science

Budding entrepreneurs, leading scientists and future business leaders from the University of Toronto community played a leading role at the 2024 Collision tech conference in downtown Toronto.

Running over three days this week, the conference drew some 40,000 attendees from across the spheres of tech, business and media, including more than 1,600 startups and 700 investors.

The rapid development of artificial intelligence technologies and their impact on business and society were key themes for many of the conference’s keynotes and exhibits – so it was no surprise that U of T’s AI luminaries were front and centre.

They included U of T alumnus Aidan Gomez, co-founder of language processing startup Cohere – which has raised hundreds of millions from investors and generated significant industry buzz.

He urged businesses to commit to adopting AI tools to support their workers.

“Making sure that you’re delivering the tools that your employees need to be competitive and effective is crucial,” Gomez said during his talk on Tuesday.

He added that augmentation of workforces with AI co-pilots and assistants is inevitable – including in industries that might not stand out as obvious adopters of the technology. He shared the example of a natural resources insurance firm that built an AI co-pilot – powered by Cohere – to help their actuaries speed up their research, craft more accurate bids and win more contracts.

“I never would have thought a natural resources insurance company would be adopting LLMs [large language models], but they are, and it’s having an impact. It’s actually helping them win more business,” Gomez said. “So I think the technology is completely horizontal.”

Gomez also cited the medical sector – particularly, drug discovery – as another area that’s poised to benefit massively from AI advances.

Aidan Gomez, a U of T alumnus, talked about how AI will be used to augment the workforce (photo by Polina Teif)

University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton, the influential computer scientist often dubbed the “godfather of AI,” also identified medical care and productivity as two key areas that will see significant improvements thanks to AI. However, much of his discussion, titled "Can We Control AI?", focused on his previously-cited concerns about how AI development could ultimately wrest control from humans given the current race to develop the technology and the absence of sufficient safeguards.

“Even if I’m totally benevolent and I just want to achieve what you asked me to achieve, I’ll realize that if I get more control, it will be easier to do that,” Hinton said of AI agents.

“And actually, if these things are much smarter than us, they’ll realize: Just take the control away from people and it will be much more efficient … and that seems to be like a very slippery path.”

Geoffrey Hinton warned of the existential dangers posed by unchecked AI development (photo by Johnny Guatto)

Gomez, for his part, said he doesn’t believe AI poses a serious threat.

“The notion that the technology is going to start self-improving, that it’s going to start manipulating people, that it’s going to take over, seize power and displace humans: that’s a sci-fi narrative,” he said. “I am empathetic to it – we’ve been writing stories about that exact scenario for decades, since before computers, and so it’s very deeply embedded in our cultural brainstems ... I just don’t think it’s true.”

Earlier at the conference, Raquel Urtasun, founder of self-driving trucking startup Waabi, spoke about generative AI and how Waabi is applying the technology to autonomous trucks. Her keynote took place following the company’s announcement that it raised US$200 million in Series B funding to support the deployment of driverless trucks in 2025.

“Everything will be controlled by generative AI systems inside the vehicle and nothing else. This is a breakthrough for the industry, where such a thing has never happened before,” said Urtasun, a professor in the department of computer science in U of T's Faculty of Arts & Science.

Raquel Urtasun spoke about her self-driving truck startup Waabi (photo by Polina Teif)

The conference also featured demos from other promising U of T startups including Erthos, which has invented sustainable alternatives to plastics and is now using machine learning to accelerate biomaterials discovery.

“Our platform allows us to design effective biomaterials five times faster and with 92 per cent less cost compared to our industry,” said co-founder and CEO Nuha Siddiqui.

Collision’s final year in Toronto was expected to draw some 40,000 attendees (photo by Johnny Guatto)

During the conference, U of T’s booth near the main stage featured exhibits from campus-linked accelerators, institutional strategic initiatives, academic divisions and the Innovations and Partnerships Office. U of T’s Black Founders Network was also at Collision as one of the organizers of the Black Innovation Zone.

Collision 2024 marked the fifth and final edition of the annual conference in Toronto.

Waabi, founded by U of T's Raquel Urtasun, raises US$200 million to launch self-driving trucks

lanthierj — Wed, 19 Jun 2024 20:26:16 +0000

Waabi, founded by U of T's Raquel Urtasun, raises US$200 million to launch self-driving trucks

lanthierj Wed, 06/19/2024 - 16:26

Cutline

(photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Rahul Kalvapalle

Topic

Global Lens

Artificial Intelligence

Entrepreneurship

Faculty of Arts & Science

Waabi, a self-driving trucking startup founded by University of Toronto artificial intelligence (AI) expert Raquel Urtasun, has raised US$200 million in series B funding to support the deployment of fully autonomous, AI-powered trucks in 2025.

The funding round was led by previous investors Uber Technologies Inc.– where Urtasun previously worked as chief scientist of the self-driving division – and Khosla Ventures and includes an array of other high-profile strategic investors including NVIDIA Corp., Volvo Group and Porsche Automobil Holding.

The latest funding brings total investment in Waabi to more than C$380 million and will be used to expand the Toronto-headquartered company’s team in both Canada and the U.S., as well as to launch driverless commercial deliveries in Texas by next year.

(photo Nick Iwanyshyn)

Urtasun, a professor in the department of computer science at U of T’s Faculty of Arts & Science and co-founder of the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence, said Waabi’s end-to-end AI system is advancing self-driving technologies to frontiers beyond the reach of other industry players thanks to its unique ability to carry out complex reasoning.

“What we have at Waabi is a technology that brings generative AI to the physical world for the first time, where the idea is that you have a single AI system that is able to reason like a human does, and is able to generalize to situations everything that might happen on the road – including things that it has never seen before,” she said.

“It does so in a way that is interpretable, so you can validate and verify the system, and provably safe, which is very important as you deploy these massive robots in the real world.”

Paired with Waabi’s advanced simulator, the AI system reduces the need for time-consuming road testing, Urtasun explained.

The announcement came hours before Urtasun took to the main stage at the Collision tech conference in Toronto to deliver a talk on generative AI. Her remarks touched on the technological underpinnings of generative AI and future applications, and outlined how Waabi is bringing generative AI to the physical world – starting with trucking.

Raquel Urtasun at the 2024 edition of Collision (photo by Polina Teif)

Urtasun is one of several experts from U of T’s technology, innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem who are speaking at Collision. Others include University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton, a world-renowned AI luminary and investor in Waabi.

“Self-driving technology is a prime example of how AI can dramatically improve our lives,” Hinton said in a news release. “Raquel and Waabi are at the forefront of innovation, developing a revolutionary approach that radically changes the way autonomous systems work and leads to safer and more efficient solutions.”

Earlier in the week, Urtasun brought one of Waabi’s trucks to the St. George campus and showcased some of its capabilities to Melanie Woodin, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Science, Tony Gaffney, president and CEO of the Vector Institute, and Michael Brudno, professor in the department of computer science and chief data scientist at the University Health Network.

From left: Melanie Woodin, Raquel Urtasun, Tony Gaffney and Michael Brudno (photo by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Urtasun underscored the importance of the company being headquartered in Toronto. “We’re an AI company and Toronto has always been at the forefront of AI,” Urtasun said. “There’s tremendous talent here, a busy ecosystem, and for me it’s important to be in Canada, where I’m very aligned with the values of the country as well.”

Reflecting on her journey at U of T, where she started as an assistant professor in 2014, Urtasun said she initially assumed she would “just be an academic doing research for the rest of my life” – but soon realized that involvement in industry would be critical to advancing AI technologies for use in the real world.

“Three years ago, I saw a tremendous opportunity to start a new company and what you see today is the fruit of that, where we’re really close to deployment on public roads without a human [driver],” said Urtasun.

“It’s amazing – not just for Waabi, not just for Canada, but for the industry at large.”

Think big and harness community: Eva and Allen Lau share top tips for entrepreneurs

mattimar — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 19:41:30 +0000

Think big and harness community: Eva and Allen Lau share top tips for entrepreneurs mattimar Tue, 06/18/2024 - 15:41

Topic

Alumni

Entrepreneneurship

Eva and Allen Lau, business leaders and co-founders of Two Small Fish Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, have some advice for entrepreneurs at the University of Toronto: leverage the U of T community.

“Notice your classmates, your professors,” Eva says in a newly released video. “One day they could be your customers, your co-founders, your business partners.”

“It’s up to you to leverage all the resources within the U of T ecosystem so that it can drastically improve the success rate of your startup,” Allen adds.

The U of T alumni and spouses are widely known for their roles in launching Wattpad, a digital storytelling platform co-founded by Allen in 2006, with Eva as one of its founding members, and sold in 2021 in a US$600-million deal.

Last week, the venture capitalists announced Two Small Fish Ventures had secured the final close of its third venture fund, meeting its $40-million target.

Earlier this year, the pair delivered a keynote titled “School of Fish: Lessons from Swimming Upstream” at the Desjardins Speaker Series during U of T’s Entrepreneurship Week.

In the video, the Laus share their top tips for entrepreneurs and startup founders, including the importance of picking the right key performance indicator (KPI), taking investors through your story and thinking big.

“In the pitch, what I’m looking for is, will the startup be the category winner or – even better – the category creator?” Allen says.

“What I’m looking for are people who are ambitious, who want to be the game changer,” Eva adds. “To me, that’s what innovation looks like.”

U of T’s AI thought leaders take centre stage at Collision 2024

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 14:14:37 +0000

U of T’s AI thought leaders take centre stage at Collision 2024

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 06/14/2024 - 10:14

Cutline

Left to right: Geoffrey Hinton, Aidan Gomez and Raquel Urtasun – all U of T community members who are leaders in the AI field – are among the most anticipated speakers this year's Collision tech conference (photos by Johnny Guatto, Piaras Ó Mídheach/Collision via Sportsfile and Polina Teif)

Mariam Matti

Topic

Alumni

Artificial Intelligence

Computer Science

Creative Destruction Lab

Entrepreneurship

Geoffrey Hinton

Research & Innovation