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Meet the Companies | Student Founders Program 2020

*Disclaimer: The following content was released using our former organization name Innovate Edmonton and/or program division Startup Edmonton, prior to the transition to our new brand and name, Edmonton Unlimited.

The Student Founders Program, provided by support from Startup Edmonton and Western Economic Diversification Canada, offers young entrepreneurs who are building an early stage tech-enabled product or business, the opportunity to work full-time over the summer to launch their startup towards success.

Each of the selected companies will be granted $10,000 dispersed in 4 allotments of $2,500 over the duration of the program (based on pre-established progress and participation milestones). These funds are intended to cover business expenses and/or living costs. Founders are expected to work full-time on their product or business for the duration of the term.

 We are happy to introduce this year’s student founders:

    • Founder: Jonathan Mui

    • Agriolabs aims to help reduce food waste and to make growing food at home easier than going to the grocery store by developing a line of compact and modular growboxes made to growing veggies in even the most cramped homes take little to no effort.

  • Build-a-Bash

    • Founders: Alycia Wolosezky and Dakota Doolaege

    • Build-a-Bash is an online platform that helps people plan parties. The innovative website allows people to search for food, decor, entertainment, and party venues

  • CoLab 

    • Founder: Saba Khurram

    • CoLab is a mobile and desktop app that connects individuals to coworking spaces around the world and is currently the system in place to book meetings at Startup Edmonton.

    • Founders: Kevin Mpunga  and Abêzghi Berhe

    • Elev is a mobile platform that serves as a bridge between landlords/property managers and post-secondary students seeking to live off-campus.

    • Founders: Ravina Anand and Michelle Kwok

    • FLIK is the first global female-focused apprenticeship platform. On FLIK, founders/leaders and female apprentices browse each other, connect, and work together.

    • Founders: Victoria Celi and Shelvie Fernan

    • Fly and Fetch is a peer-to-peer shipping marketplace that will make international shipping cheaper, faster and friendlier.

  • JN-Cards

    • Founder: Jason Neitsch

    • JN-Cards facilitates the buying and selling of cards for users who play the Pokémon Trading Card Game online.

  • Robolution Technology Inc.

    • Founders: Linjian Xiang and Mingjie Han

    • Robolution uses computer vision technology to aid cannabis cultivators to dramatically decrease their time and cost, and to increase their accuracy, with which they are able to detect, classify and analyze key data required for harvesting for optimal quality and yield.

    • Founder: Michael Milner

    • Rogue7 is developing a software module for the oil and gas industry that extracts real-time data from a client’s existing Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system (SCADA) and uses the data to generate operational predictions.

  • Trex ai 

    • Founders: Peter Atrazhev and Steven Zhang

    • Transactive Renewable Energy Exchange (TREX), is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted flexibility platform for sustainably maintaining the energy market.

The program will guide student founders through a mandatory, weekly, live curriculum designed to help:

  • Identify and develop early customers

  • Prove your market

  • Build a strong foundation for your product, team, and company

  • Learn to sell your product and company to customers and investors

There were 47 applications for the Student Founders program and 27 companies made the shortlist to be interviewed during the process.

Of those that were interviewed, five companies that didn’t make it into the Student Founder’s program were automatically granted a spot in Startup Edmonton’s Student Summer Program, and everyone who applied for the Student Founder Program and who didn’t get in are encouraged to apply to the Student Summer Program.

We’re looking forward to seeing what great things these student founders have up their sleeves!

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