News

Medical tech startup takes home top SFU entrepreneurship competition award

Apr 13, 2022

ODEN Health Solutions Inc. has been named Top Venture in SFU’s 11th annual Coast Capital Venture Prize competition, taking home a $30K prize package. ODEN is a medical device company committed to providing life-saving assistance for everyone regardless of social or economic situation or geographical location. Its inaugural product in development is a self-contained wearable device that is capable of monitoring vital signs of users, detecting opioid overdoses, and notifying emergency services of the overdose in order […]

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SFU entrepreneurs named Changemakers by The Globe and Mail for innovative startups in tech and sustainability

Feb 25, 2022

Two SFU alumni have been named in The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Magazine‘s 2022 Changemakers, an annual list of emerging leaders transforming business today. Rene Blanco and Sumreen Rattan, entrepreneurs from The Charles Chang Institute for Entrepreneurship, are two of 50 Canada-wide award recipients comprised of entrepreneurs, academics and executives who are striving to find innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing issues. Both Blanco and Rattan developed their startups through SFU’s Coast […]

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Changing the Face of Sustainable Energy: Alumni Startup Moment Energy Closes $3.5 Million Seed Round

Nov 19, 2021

Moment Energy, a sustainable startup transforming second-life electric vehicle batteries and a client of SFU’s Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection incubator program, recently closed a $3.5 million seed funding round led by Version One Ventures. Co-founded by four graduates from SFU’s Mechatronic Systems Engineering Program, Moment Energy creates sustainable energy storage systems by repurposing retired electric vehicle batteries. The startup’s solution has been installed in off-grid areas to reduce diesel consumption and enables a transition to renewable energy.  To date […]

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Winners named in i2I Venture Pitch competition

Oct 26, 2021

An innovative electrochemical water treatment process and an advanced tool for use in genome sequencing applications were the winning innovation ideas at the 2021 i2I Venture Pitch Competition. The annual event – this year in Hybrid format – saw scientist-entrepreneurs graduating from the Invention to Innovation (i2I) program at SFU’s Beedie School of Business pitching their research-based innovation ideas to a panel of judges with a wealth of experience in mentoring scientist-entrepreneurs and in advising […]

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SFU Beedie Executive MBA alumni win SFU’s largest entrepreneurship competition

Apr 22, 2021

Labora Consulting Services Corp. has won the top prize in SFU’s 10th annual Coast Capital Savings Venture Prize competition, taking home a $35,000-prize package. Labora’s AgTech platform provides a simple and secure digital payroll service to farmers enabling their seasonal agricultural workers to transfer remittances back home. The founders, Rene Blanco, Jaspal Brar and Ryan Klatt developed the idea for Labora while completing the Executive MBA program at SFU Beedie. In 2019, Labora won the Top Idea […]

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Winners named in first virtual i2I Venture Pitch competition

Nov 5, 2020

The annual i2I Venture Pitch Competition went ahead in a virtual format for the first time this year, as scientist-entrepreneurs graduating from the Invention to Innovation program at SFU’s Beedie School of Business pitched their research-based innovation ideas to a panel of judges with science commercialization, seed investment, and legal expertise. The year long, part-time Invention to Innovation (i2I) program develops entrepreneurial mindset in graduate scientists and engineers and enables them to create and commercialize solutions […]

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Award-winning entrepreneur training program celebrates inaugural year and expands

Sep 24, 2020

Mitacs and the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University (SFU Beedie) have renewed a partnership to offer the Invention to Innovation (i2I) program for graduate students. Over seven months, i2I Skills Training equips participants with the frameworks, perspectives, and techniques to develop an innovation mindset and commercialize their inventions while overcoming marketplace challenges. Created by SFU Beedie, the program recently won international recognition after AACSB International — the world’s largest business education network — highlighted […]

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SFU brings international innovators together to turn science into solutions

Aug 11, 2020

With a growing urgency for universities to address global challenges with breakthrough innovations, the demand for entrepreneurial scientists is on the rise. On Aug. 4 and 5, the Beedie School of Business’ Charles Chang Institute for Entrepreneurship drew together 395 attendees from 38 countries in 22 time zones at the digital 2020 R & D Management Symposium, Invention to Innovation: Creating the Conditions for Impact, to re-define how universities, policymakers and industry can advance research-based innovation and respond […]

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Rising sales for gluten free bread entrepreneur

Jun 10, 2020

Sonia Mastroianni (BBA 1992), co-founder of specialty bread company Aidan’s Gluten Free Inc., didn’t set out with the intention of becoming an entrepreneur. While studying in the undergraduate program at SFU’s Beedie School of Business, she took advantage of the opportunity to complete co-op employment terms, and one of those led to her lining up a permanent role after graduating. She worked in a corporate sales position in Calgary for three and half years, before […]

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Award-winning innovation training program expands nationally

Jun 1, 2020

Aspiring scientist and technology entrepreneurs across Canada can now access SFU Beedie’s ground-breaking skills training program, Invention to Innovation (i2I). The announcement follows the successful completion of a pilot program offering the program in British Columbia and Alberta in partnership with Mitacs, a not-for-profit organization that fosters growth and innovation in Canada by solving challenges with research solutions from the best academic institutions. The i2I Mitacs Skills Training Pilot is based on the i2I Graduate […]

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