Join us in welcoming this fresh group of impact companies and their founders to the Canadian startup and impact ecosystem!
Through Spring’s IMPACT Startup Visa Accelerator Program, they will learn about the best practices for doing business in Canada and how to plan, measure, and grow their positive impact on the world.
From an academy focusing on developing the craft of gelato-making to an electronics upcycling company, this group of business owners is keen on innovating to make the world a better place!
Introducing the Cohort
Agora Vision
Agora Vision is a digital broadcasting and publishing company focussed on increasing the impact of minority literature using digital outreach, machine learning, and business innovations. The company started off by publishing Kurdish audiobooks through a mobile application called Agora Deng (deng is “voice” in Kurdish). What’s upcoming for this team? Agora is now focussed on building machine learning modules to enhance audiobooks and translations. On the business development side, they’re building partnerships with international stakeholders in the literature computing industry to expand globally.
As Director of Design of Agora Vision, Hemin is responsible for overseeing all the aspects of the business that affect the user experience including but not limited to the visual design, functionality, and the business strategy. He also supervises the UI team, the marketing team, and the Development team.
Hemin Latif | Founder & Director of Design
Gawani Africa
Gawani Africa is an impact consulting business in the global professional services industry specifically specializing in tech-driven innovation for advancing development research. Its mission is to connect the world with the latent potential of research in Africa and to equip Africa’s young thinkers with the skills and tools to innovate for Africa and beyond. Gawani is building THINKNG as its core product, delivering training to strengthen critical thinking skills and research competencies for potential researchers and innovators in lower and lower middle-income countries through an AI-enhanced, remote learning platform.
Martin is the founding team lead and has overall responsibility for leadership and day-to-day management of Gawani Africa. In this role, he leads market and business development, client relationship management, and project delivery. He is also responsible for all core operational management activities for the business, including financial management, talent sourcing and development, business risk management and compliance.
Martin Eigbike | Managing Partner & CEO
Glory has operational responsibility for the firm’s work in research capacity strengthening, specifically data aggregation, modelling, and analysis and the sourcing and development of
relevant datasets for the THINKNG platform. Her work also entails leading on project delivery for Gawani’s consulting projects in the research capacity strengthening space, through which the firm forges and maintains relationships with key global actors across the research ecosystem in Africa and globally.
Glory Igharo | Consultant & Data Science Lead
Lab First Analysis
Lab First Analysis provides failure analysis, material analysis and reliability assurance service for the semiconductor industry. The industry is highly competitive as markets work hard to keep operation costs low while accelerating product development cycles. Lab First Analysis aims to build Canada’s own IC ecosystem to meet the growing domestic and global demand for chips. The team is dedicated to providing reliable, efficient and secured analytical services from their new office in Vancouver. How are they hoping to make the world a better place? Indirectly, by servicing the shift towards electric vehicles, which depend on semiconductor chips!
As CEO and CFO of Lab First Analysis, Shih Min Cheng is responsible for setting business and financial goals, as well as resource planning and implementing a plan of action. She’s passionate about empowering her team members to achieve company goals and making sure that operations are developing sustainably.
Shih Min Cheng | CEO & CFO
Medzo Gelato Bar
An affordable indulgence with widespread appeal, gelato has proven to be a highly profitable and recession-proof product, making it a low-risk culinary venture for those with a well-rounded set of basic business skills. Medzo Gelato Bar (short for Mediterranean Zone) offers hand-crafted, artisan gelato and sorbet using local organic dairy and carefully-vetted ingredients from the Mediterranean region. Medzo is in the process of relocating its business from Seattle to the township of Esquimalt, where they plan to launch an apprentice training program. Their new location in Canada will serve as a training center and prototype for the Medzo Gelato Academy; a place where students can learn to create recipes using the traditional but rarely-taught direct method of production.
As the General Manager of Medzo, Jennifer wears many hats and is in charge of operations, staffing, bookkeeping, inventory control, data analysis, and marketing. Interested in making a positive impact, Jennifer has created the apprentice-based academy to model social entrepreneurship. How? By improving the lives of Independent Self-Employed Owner-Operators (ISEOO), their families and their communities by advocating for their interests and working toward specific goals: providing management-level pay through profit-sharing, teaching essential business skills, anticipating and mitigating future risks, closing opportunity gaps, and creating lease opportunities for a reasonable price with reasonable terms.
Jennifer Al-Abboud | Co-Founder & General Manager
Noyan Kian San'at Arvin
Noyan Kian San’at Arvin produced Electronic Gas Volume Correctors (EVC), which is the central component of gas measurement systems worldwide. This product is used in gas distribution networks, industrial plants, buildings and large commercial and residential complexes.While the PTZ turbine meter is usually applied to measure the volume of consumed natural gas, it’s inaccurate on its own and needs an electronic gas volume corrector to precisely measure the volume of followed gas. The team at Noyan Kian designed a monitoring software to monitor the parameters of gas metering and regulating stations, collecting measured data through their EVC and supporting customers with consultations.
Hossein Bagherzade is the CEO and cofounder of Noyan Gas Ltd. He is educated in electrical engineering, electronics. He is experienced in design and manufacturing of electronic products and has worked with several teams to achieve that goals. He established Noyan Gas Ltd four years ago. During this period, he developed Electronic Volume Corrector (EVC) which have designed properly for gas distribution network applications based on current local and global market demands with help of the potential customers to be best engineered. The designed product has been advised by local contractors in the industry.
Hossein Bagherzade | Co-Founder & CEO
As Project Manager, Mohammadreza is responsible for business management, with a particular focus on operations, marketing and finance. Passionate about the importance of energy management and maximizing the efficiency of natural gas, Mohammadreza is dedicated to educating people on the smart metering device which will help operators and consumers manage natural gas usage more effectively.
Mohammadreza Emarati | Co-Founder & Project Manager
Roki Foods
Roki Foods Ltd. is an African meal kit and food bundling company with over 120 different African foods and spices organically sourced directly from farmers and sold to customers all over the world. African meals have been highly underrepresented in the global food scene. With the world becoming a global village and families seeking out a variety of international cuisines, the most popular of which are Chinese, Italian, Latin American and Mexican, Roki foods aims to bring more diversity, inclusion and increase the presence of African meals and recipes in the global food industry. African meal lovers can now get ingredients and recipes delivered to their homes and learn how to prepare their desired meals and explore new ingredients and techniques leading to improved well-being.
Ifeyinwa has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a post-graduate diploma in Economics with over ten years’ experience in marketing and five years of commercial banking experience. She currently oversees and manages the resources of Roki Foods to realize the vision and mission of the company in achieving sustained profitable growth for the company..
Ifeyinwa Ogar | Founder & CEO
SS Protelo Business Solutions
Protelo exists to solve the language barrier for people working beyond borders in various domains.
The company was created to handle professional script translations, voice recordings, subtitling, video dubbing, voice-over and audio translations of projects in over 165 languages. No matter the platform or media type, Protelo’s goal is to ensure that clients fully engage their audiences around the world. Ensuring consistent high quality, native fluency and accuracy in all languages is their superpower!
Shan is incharge of planning and monitoring the day-to-day running of Protelo by supervising staff from different departments, providing constructive feedback thereby ensuring a smooth progress at the workplace. He is a huge fan of Thamizh (Tamil) and is a believer of giving equal importance to every single language of the world as they all have a strong heritage behind them.
Shanmugaraj Rajamanickam | Co-Founder & CEO
Travaris
Travaris is a mobile app built to disrupt the travel & tourism industry by providing an end-to-end travel experience. Its mission is to help travellers including backpackers, solo travellers, and nomads worldwide connect with their destination, and enjoying a genuinely local travel experience. The user experience is designed to serve travellers who value learning about and immersing themselves in the local customs and experiences of their destination. An added bonus is that the app is meant to take care of all the logistics, so you can sit back and enjoy the journey without having to worry so much about planning.
As CEO of Travaris, Youssef is in charge of conceptualizing the company’s vision and mission. Aside from building a strong team and developing the product, he’s also in charge of securing funding and ensuring that the app generates revenue.
Youssef Said | Co-Founder & CEO
A problem solver and an introverted interventionist, Muzaffer excels in providing strategic product direction. His role at Travaris includes building the product vision and innovation plan as well as designing the app’s UX and UI while testing and iterating.
Muzaffer Berkay Alkisel | Co-Founder & CPO
Universal Travel Systems
Universal Travel Systems (UTS) provides innovative product solutions in the smart luggage industry. Their state-of-the-art smart travel systems offer ingenious designs and technology to provide an exceptional travel experience to frequent business and leisure travelers. UTS specializes in using ocean-recycled plastic for manufacturing all our products and currently has two products under development: Check-In Smart suitcase and Carry-On Smart suitcase.
As the Director of Marketing and Social Media, Sonal is in charge of conceptualizing and implementing all things marketing within the company. An Energetic and passionate executive with 20 years of experience in building and managing efficient and productive support teams in various verticals including travel, aviation, retail & the service Industry.
Sonal Preet Singh | Marketing & Social Media Director
As the Director of Marketing and Social Media, Sonal is in charge of conceptualizing and implementing all things marketing within the company. An Energetic and passionate executive with 20 years of experience in building and managing efficient and productive support teams in various verticals including travel, aviation, retail & the service Industry.
Rahul Handa | CEO
UpCircuit Solutions
UpCircuit is an end-to-end blockchain-powered electronic upcycling platform that enables businesses and individuals to exchange their old electronics (e.g., laptops and cellphones) on a decentralized platform with UpCircuit’s cryptocurrency. UpCircuit manages the upcycling process and either performs it directly or sends it to vendors. Upcycled products can be purchased on the platform. Some upcycled products will enable the company to provide cloud services which could be exchanged on the platform as well. The upcycled products and services are carbon negative.
As CEO of UpCircuit Solutions, Hamidreza manages the sales, marketing, and operations hiring. His previous experience in international business administration, startup planning and materials scientist, have provided him with the tools to currently manage UpCircuit’s sales team and outreach to KOLsand industry partners. Hamidreza spends his time doing customer discovery interviews and feature development and design with the support of CTO.
Hamidreza Abdarbashi | CEO
1 people reacted on this
Congratulations and best Wishes for these guys and their “impact businesses” in Canada.