Engineering Entrepreneurship Series, 2004-2008
Have you ever thought of starting your own company, but wondered where to begin? Do you have a great idea but don't know how to get the necessary financing? We engineers often make great entrepreneurs and many do well in business - 25% of all Canadian CEOs are engineers.
One thing that is missing from the engineering curriculum is a *culture* of entrepreneurism - that sense that making a company happen is just what people do! The goal of this series is to have real entrepreneurs come in and tell the stories of their companies - where the idea came from, who had it, who they shared it with, how they funded it, the good things, the bad things, the lucky things and the unlucky things.
We believe that if you hear these stories you may be inspired to start your own company. Our emphasis is to bring in former, recent graduates, but we look for great entrepreneurial stories of any kind. If you have a great story to tell, please contact Susan Grant - susan.grant@utoronto.ca.
Events from 2007-2008:
- "Putting Ideas to Work: The Business of Hydrogen" - Professor Steven Thorpe will discuss his involvement in the area of hydrogen and sustainable development and how a simple consultancy lead to $M’s in research, the growth of a private company, and the birth of one of the most successful IPO’s in Canada. Steven will talk about the pathway -- a rollercoaster of successes and failures -- with a view to smoothing the road ahead with the latest spin-off companies. November 7th, 2007 at 5pm in SF1105.
- "4 wins, 0 losses: Is there a formula?" - Xerxes Wania, MASc (U of T), will discuss his involvement in 4 successful start-ups in the past 9 years. Was it luck, strategy, formula, technology, or just common sense? Xerxes will talk about each of the 4 companies he was involved with, commenting on what worked and didn't work, and what he things increases the odds of success. October 16, 2007 at 5pm in SF1105.
- "Ups & Downs in Starting a Company: Lessons in Entrepreneurship" - Arshia Tabrizi (9T5) is the founding partner of Tabrizi Law Office Professional Corporation, a boutique law firm advising emerging companies and investors on intellectual property, corporate, financing and technology law matters. Arshia practiced previously at the pre-eminent Silicon Valley law firm of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati. He has been profiled in the Canadian Bar Association National magazine and is an Advisory Member of the Canadian Venture Capital Association. Arshia is a regular speaker on technology commercialization at ECE, the Rotman School of Management and the MaRS Discovery District. Thursday October 4, 2007 at 5:10pm in SF1105
- "What I learned on my summer not-so-vacation: Closing a seed round of financing" - Mark Kerbel, REGEN Energy. Tuesday September 25, 2007 at 5:10pm in SF1105. The slides from this presentation are found here.
Events from 2006-2007:
Events from 2005-2006:
- "A Canadian Inventor's Journey" - Don Wilson, founder and co-inventor of Virtually Perfect Golf, and Les Truxa, co-inventor of Invisions. Click here for their bios.
- "Too Smart for your own Good: What every engineer/technologist should know about starting and manging a business" - Angel Mehta.
- "What they don't teach you in Skule about your career as an engineer" - Bill Wignall, President & CEO of Electronics Workbench and Skule graduate (8T8).
- "Merging Engineering, Technology & Business: A fab-less semiconductor start-up story" - Farhad Shafai.
- "Finding & Exploiting Business Opportunities" - Wally Pieczonka.
- "Youth vs. Experience" - Andrew Harrison.
- "The Business of Biometrics & Cryptography" - Rene McIver.
- "Making it big: The insider's view on building a successful career in software development" with Sam Lightstone, Senior Technical Staff Member and Development Manager with IBM's DB2 Universal Database Development team.
Events from 2004-2005:
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