09/03/2022
Montreal’s company visits began with Centech, a non-profit incubator supporting hi-tech / deeptech startups. After Richard Chenier (CEO) gave us a tour and overview of Centech’s activities, we assisted an interactive panel with three entrepreneurs: Collins Oghor (Co-Founder and CEO of Collogh Cares, a digital health technology and advocacy start-up, committed to preventing kidney failure), Isabelle Bettez (Co-Founder of 8 Technologies, a company that developed M2M bicycle-sharingsystems and automated parking management systems – now acquired by Lyft), and Chloe Ryan (Founder and CEO of Acrylic, an art-tech startup using robotics and ML to allow artists to sell limited-edition NFT-authenticated collections of art conceived by them and painted by their robotic twin with real paint on canvas at scale)
During the latter half of the afternoon, the group was hosted by BDC. Steven Abrams, partnermanaging the IT Venture and Women in Tech Funds, extensively discussed the venture capital landscape in Canada, with valuable insights on governmental initiatives such as the Venture Capital Action Plan (VCAP) and Venture CapitalCatalyst Initiative (VCCI).
The last stop was Paper, an educational tech-company that partners with schools and school districts to provide students with free, unlimited, 24/7 tutoring. The founder, Philip A. Cutler, and CTO, Roberto Cipriani, shared the group with the company history and their personal experiences.
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As part of a collaborative study trip between the Desautels - McGill University and Hebrew University Business School, groups of Canadian and Israeli students collaborate on projects applying course concepts to selected partnering startups.