What The Tech?

Today I’m thrilled to welcome Natalie Duncan, Co-Founder and CEO of Bug Mars. a smart, scalable and automated insect farming startup that uses computer vision and machine learning to increase yield and profitability of insect farms for food, feed, and organic waste reduction.Bug Mars is unique not just because they’re building AI software for alternative protein (that is, bugs), but because their mission is to find ways to feed humans and livestock better, and more sustainably. It’s an incredible mission that encompasses a lot of really big stuff, impacting future generations, food security, and of course our climate.I’m thrilled to chat with Natalie about the unique innovation she’s driving at Bug Mars, her experience in the startup world, and her plans for the future!Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence. Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth. Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

We're thrilled to welcome Dr. Ewa Antczak onto the show. Along with being a registered psychologist in the province of Ontario as well as an author and co-author of several research papers on social advertisement, she is also Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Felixa Games.At Felixa, Ewa and her team are developing an AI engine that can be implemented into existing video games to monitor, track and analyze behavioral markers for players. The AI engine will evaluate biological factors including eye movement, facial expressions and tone of voice while gathering information from wearables to paint a picture of a player’s well being. It’s a nascent but important tech that holds a lot of promise, with the potential to give game manufacturers insights they need to support the mental health of customers, while giving players  in the gaming community a safe and secure environment to learn about and deal with their mental health struggles.It’s a lofty mission that crosses multiple disciplines, and I can't wait to hear from Ewa what her plans are for Felixa on the short term, her long-term goals and her take on navigating the startup world in 2023. Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence. Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth. Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today I’m thrilled to be chatting with Lloyd Bureau, who is a ​​Venture Associate and Validation Program Lead at District 3 Innovation. There, Lloyd helps nurture and develop multidisciplinary teams that harness emerging technologies to create businesses with a global impact. As of today, Lloyd has run 4 cohorts of the D3’s Validation program, an early-stage startup program designed to help founders validate their business models through hands-on market research. He has also worked with a portfolio of 35 growth-stage High Tech startups and their coaches to prioritize activities through OKRs, all while providing coaching on sales processes, value-selling, customer success, and improving pitch decks.Lloyd is also a founder in his own right, joining D3’s program in 2016 to build TRYNYTY, a Montreal-based freestyle scooter brand leveraging 3D-printing for product development, with a mission to support the growth of the freestyle scooter community.Needless to say, Lloyd knows the startup and innovation community better than most, and his insights into what it takes to succeed and achieve growth are invaluable. But that’s not all!Joining Lloyd and I for today’s conversation is Mina Mekhail, the award-winning CEO and Founder of Freshr Technologies. Mina participated in D3’s Validation and Launch & Grow programs at Concordia University’s District 3 Innovation Center when he was starting his company back in 2018.Based out of Nova Scotia, Freshr Technologies is a biomaterials innovation Startup that’s focused on developing sustainable active packaging to prolong the shelf life of fresh proteins, with a focus on fresh fish. Mina and his team at Freshr are developing solutions that increase the return on investment for the entire value chain, while reducing food waste and reliance on traditional plastics.I can’t wait to pick Lloyd and Mina’s brains on past projects, exciting initiatives they're both currently involved in, and what’s on each of their roadmap for the next year-plus.Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence. Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth. Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today I am thrilled to welcome to the show Weston Baker, Founder & CEO of Morphic and an overall force in the startup ecosystem. At Morphic, Weston has created a no-code SaaS platform that empowers businesses to create their own high-quality websites. The solution uses an advanced design logic with integrated best practices and instant brand application to create pages that can be easily edited and managed using the integrated CMS, Site Editor and Asset Library.Along with being a founder in his own right, however, Weston has extensive experience partnering and mentoring startups, tech giants, VCs, PE firms, real estate companies, fashion houses and brands throughout his career. His startup studio, 15 Finches, has worked with dozens of successful founders in various industries and with different business models to help find product market fit, consult and design product, rebrand and propel growth at various stages.He’s got a wealth of experience in the field, and I’m excited to pick his brain on what’s next for Morphic, his journey within the startup space to date, and his take on what the future has in store for the startup community.Without further ado, welcome to the show, Weston!Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence. Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth. Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Hello and welcome to What The Tech from Boast AI, where we talk with some of the brilliant minds behind new and exciting [tech] initiatives to learn what it takes to tackle “technological uncertainty” and, eventually, change the world.Today I’m thrilled to welcome to the show Brett Colvin, CEO and Co-founder of Goodlawyer. His is a platform designed to give high-growth scaleups and mid-market companies an alternative to the traditional corporate law firm with a smarter, faster and more cost-effective way to address their operational legal needs. Goodlawyer’s Fractional General Counsel is the only outsourced general counsel service that gives executive teams a dedicated legal partner to proactively manage legal tasks and risks before issues arise, while also providing on-demand, limited-scope and project-specific legal services.Goodlawyer is also a fantastic Boast partner, as we leverage the expertise of their team, while sharing a passion for the startup and scaleup communities across Calgary—where Brett is based—and the entire Canadian ecosystem.I can’t wait to hear how Brett got into the startup space, the genesis of Goodlawyer, and what’s on his roadmap for the rest of 2023!Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence. Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth. Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today I’m thrilled to be joined by two guests as part of our Founders & Friends series! For these shows, we encourage a member of our network to extend the invitation to a new friend to hop on the mic and chat about their founder stories and get their take on building a successful startup!Joining us is our friend Andrew Gaudry, a Business Development Associate at Broderick Capital, where he helps Canadian entrepreneurs scale their rapidly growing businesses by connecting them with the strategic capital and advisory services they need to really take off. Along with having built a cross-industry network that spans the country, Broderick Capital has also established a strong relationship with Green Acre Capital, Canada’s first cannabis venture capital fund, which is working with Andrew’s team at Broderick to to expedite the growth of fast-moving startups in this field.Joining Andrew and I is Venky Weylagro, Founder & CEO of MD Connected, where he’s seeking to revolutionize the healthcare industry by offering telehealthcare services to citizens across Canada. MD Connected’s telemedicine clinics reduce wait times from days to minutes. All of this is done without ever sacrificing quality of care, while actually working to improve health quality across the country.The work Venky is doing and Andrew is helping support are not just noble efforts, but they’re often steeped in the latest technology and are rife with R&D. I’m excited to pick both their brains about the state of startups and healthcare, their approach to building a new business in 2023, and their plans for the future!Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence. Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth. Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today I’m thrilled to welcome my new friend and fellow Boston resident Elizabeth Miner onto the show. Elizabeth is an Executive Coach, Speaker, Author and Community Builder, working with both groups and individuals around the world to create pathways and develop actionable plans to make anything her clients dream a reality. With a background in the legal space working in specialties from Supreme Court litigation to multinational corporations, Elizabeth changed course roughly 15 years ago to work with entrepreneurs and businesses across the globe. Among the projects she’s helping spearhead today is the Boston Beauty Coalition, a community of fashion entrepreneurs based here in the Hub that helps beauty startups access the resources and community they need to scale their growth. I’m thrilled to finally have a local friend on the show, and can’t wait to hear Elizabeth’s take on both the local and global startup ecosystem, the unique challenges of working in fashion, the innovation she sees every day, and her plans for the future!Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence. Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth. Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today I’m thrilled to chat with Athiya Rastogi, Co-Founder of Snapwrite, an image-to-text platform for retailers that automates product digitization and SEO to help optimize product discoverability, increase revenue streams and ultimately create greater resale potential. It’s a silver bullet for original brands and resellers alike who are navigating a crowded omnichannel market, and the technology is steeped in R&D that I’m excited for Athiya to unpack.I’ll leave it to Athiya to get into the nitty gritty and to tell us about her experience as a data scientist and how Snapwrite came to be.Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence. Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth. Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today I’m thrilled to welcome Erik Simins to the show, who is the CEO and CO-Founder of Workwolf and is a force in the Toronto startup scene. At Workwolf, Erik’s team has developed a hiring software that finds, screens, and validates quality candidates better than humans can. Using proprietary technology to screen and verify backgrounds, the platform automates the recruitment process, bringing unmatched efficiencies to the employment market.But Erik has been driving innovation in Canada for more than a decade, having founded his first 8-figure company in 2011 with the healthcare staffing firm MAGNUS, which has since partnered with the Canadian government and hundreds of customers across North America.It’s safe to say that Erik not only understands the tech and talent ecosystem in Canada, but has played a hand in steering it over the course of his career.I’ll leave it to Erik to share the details and give his take on the state of startups, what it takes to make it as an entrepreneur and the incredible work that has gone into building his businesses. Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence. Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth. Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.

Today I’m thrilled to be joined by Ella Harris and Kenny Huang, Co-Founders of TinyRex, which is an extremely talented indie game studio that’s bringing a unique perspective to narrative-driven idle games. This tiny team packs a huge punch, as they bring years of commercial success in the video game and social casino industry to their mission, which is to create mobile gaming content with partners around the world, and, as Kenny puts it, “crafting small, cozy games that our players will love.”While the games may feel small and cozy, there is some serious innovation happening here, as the team created their own idle-merge framework by blending the static nature of idles games with the dynamic experience of merge games, which led to the launch of their debut game, Wizard of Oz: Idle Merge, which achieved a combined 4.8 star rating on the app store!It’s quite a story, so joining me again this week to discuss how this innovation was translated into meaningful capital is Boast AI’s own Technical Solutions Manager, Aliya Amershi! Before we kick off with our guests, Aliya, welcome back to the show, how is it going and could you provide a quick intro for listeners who haven’t caught your previous episode with Natureblocks?Boast accelerates the success of innovative businesses globally with software that integrates financial, payroll, and engineering data into a single platform of R&D intelligence. Visit Boast.ai, sign up for our Blog newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn for weekly #InnovatorsLive sessions and the latest news to fuel your growth. Intro and Outro music provided by Dennis Ma whose mixes you can find on Soundcloud at DJ DennyDex.