By Sonia Preszcator, Western Communications
A second cohort of entrepreneurial souls learning how to embrace calculated risk in an effort to create meaningful, sustainable value in the world have been chosen to participate in the Western Accelerator. Open to Western students, faculty and recent alumni, the Accelerator offers a year’s worth of learning for entrepreneurs to turn inspired ideas into real products and services.
During their time in the Accelerator, each of the seven companies receives a monthly stipend ($3,000 per team), comprehensive programming and educational sessions, as well as network sessions with successful entrepreneurs, industry experts, investors and service providers.
“This is the strongest cohort we’ve had to date. They all have great potential at this time,” said Eric Morse, Special Advisor to the President and Director of Entrepreneurship at Western. “Continuing to work with students past graduation is certainly a trend we see picking up steam. Companies like these are great inspiration for current students, faculty and staff. They end up employing other students and making contributions to the local, regional and national economies.”
The second cohort of companies participating Western’s Accelerator program include:
Aquatell Inc.
Reid Thornley
Aquatell is an online retailer with automated tools that help families and businesses learn about and decide which water softener and treatment products are best for their needs.
Ascend Applications
Ryan Kelly-Martin
Ascend Applications provides a simple, web-based solutions to help businesses and services increase AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act) compliance and make online content more accessible to people with disabilities.
Cohesys Inc.
Michael Tessier
In the near future, Cohesys’ medical adhesive will help patients with face and jaw illnesses and injuries heal faster. Designed and manufactured to be absorbed by the body, it offers more movement and is more comfortable than conventional titanium plates and screws.
Front Line Medical Technologies Inc.
Asha Parekh
Front Line Medical Technologies has developed a medical device to stop internal bleeding in emergency trauma situations.
HYY Selections Inc.
Zhengfan Yang, Shuwen Huang and Dawei Yin
HYY Selections is programming mobile software customization and foreign exchange payment supports to make it easier for Canadian businesses to sell products and real estate to Chinese consumers living in Canada.
SixFive Interactive
Tyler Bryden
SixFive Interactive is a digital-marketing company that provides marketing strategy and content production for businesses and non-profits. The company’s latest creation is Speak, a speech analysis software that can extract personality, tone and meaning from online audio, video and text and provide recommendations on how to catch potential customers’ searches and attention.
Vitruvius Technologies Inc.
Blake Stone and Colton Kadlecik
Vitruvius programs motion-capture attacks, as well as feedback and weapons parry systems, to make battles in action-role-playing VR games feel more real.