When Shirley Zhong, an Ivey and engineering student, organized the 2024 Western Hult Prize Competition so her classmates and others could test their entrepreneurial mettle, she never imagined she’d later compete for the prestigious Hult Prize and other entrepreneurial awards herself.
Having since joined forces with two friends from the University of Toronto – Diana Virgovicova and Kerem Topal Ismail Oglou – to co-found Xatoms, a water purification startup, Zhong and her team have been on a whirlwind journey to success.
The trio recently won three prizes totalling $250,000 at Startupfest 2024 in Montreal and took home a whopping $500,000 after the Business Development Bank of Canada matched their winnings. Xatoms will also participate in the Hult Prize global accelerator, Aug. 15 to Sept. 6, and the Hult Prize 2024 Global Finals, both in London, U.K.
The Xatoms co-founders qualified for the U.K. events after competing in the University of Toronto’s Hult Prize event. Xatoms was among the top 14 of 9,400 teams and the only Canadian team in the mix.
Ivey competition fuels passion for entrepreneurship
It all started with Zhong’s involvement in the Western Hult Prize Competition. As a Hult Campus Ambassador, Zhong wasn’t allowed to participate in the university’s competition, which is the first step to the global Hult finals, but was intrigued by the Western social enterprises.
While organizing the event, she learned Virgovicova and Topal Ismail Oglou were launching Xatoms, so she encouraged them to participate in their university’s own Hult Prize Competition. Needing a third partner to qualify, they asked her to join the team, and she became a co-founder and chief operating officer shortly afterward. The three initially met last year. Zhong, an HBA and engineering student, and Topal Ismail Oglou were both part of the 2023 Cansbridge Fellowship cohort and later interned at the same company in Tokyo, where Virgovicova just happened to be travelling.
Zhong said her experience at Ivey has helped at every stage of her entrepreneurial journey.
“I’m able to take the Ivey case learning and apply it to Xatoms right away. I always bring up questions to my professors and get quick feedback.” – Shirley Zhong, Ivey HBA and Western engineering student
While their success might seem swift, Virgovicova said it has been a long, hard journey to get to this point.
“It has been a really tough journey with a lot of rejections, and I’m sure many more still coming, but that’s just part of entrepreneurship,” she said. “It’s actually a good thing if you fail several times so you can get better.”
Dirty river sparks quantum leap in water purification
Xatoms, short for Exploration of Atoms, uses quantum chemistry and artificial intelligence to clean water of contaminants like pesticides, herbicides, viruses and bacteria.
Ivey lecturer Lameck Osinde, who leads the Africa Service Learning course, helped the Xatoms team connect with organizations in Kenya for potential pilot projects to supply clean water.
The team members said a powerful point in their entrepreneurial journey was visiting the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya where they saw the dire need for clean water and the impact their company can make.
Tapping into Ivey’s entrepreneur resources
Now Zhong is leveraging Ivey’s resources to grow the company.
She’s taking both the Ivey New Venture Project and HBA Sustainability Certificate and said the programs’ faculty members have been great mentors. Zhong is working with professor Oana Branzei, director of the sustainability certificate, on a live case on Xatoms. She is also collaborating with Branzei and Dusya Vera, PhD’02, on a research project through the Western Undergraduate Summer Research Internships.
Xatoms will also participate in the upcoming 16-week intensive Regenerator initiative, a collaboration between Ivey’s Centre for Building Sustainable Value and the Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship, which provides education to founders of startups aiming to regenerate the future.
“Everyone at Ivey is super supportive. It’s not like I’m out there swimming with the sharks,” Zhong said.
“Ivey is like a home I can come back to, where I know all of the professors will be advocating for me – advocating for me as a student and advocating for the company.”
