• Got a great idea but don’t know how to make it happen? 
• Want to get started on your entrepreneurial journey while in school? 
• Willing to work hard and learn from the best? 
• DMZ’s Sandbox Student Grant has you covered!!

The DMZ values equity over everything because everyone has unique barriers when it comes to getting their ideas off the ground. We are here to give you the tailored support to not only start a business but run a business. 

Toronto’s startup landscape is interdisciplinary. You don’t have to be in engineering or business to be a revolutionary startup founder. 

Diversity is one of Ryerson’s greatest strengths. To apply for the program, your idea doesn’t have to be tech-focused but does need to be a cutting-edge solution to a pervasive problem. 

How does it work?

1. 1. Fill out the Sandbox Student Grant application.
      • Your application consists of a brief description of your solution or product, the problem it solves and what makes you and your idea unique.
   2. Applications are reviewed by a committee!
      • Successful applicants receive exclusive coaching from DMZ’s Entrepreneurs in Residence team who have the insider knowledge that will take your business to the next level. You will also be paired with a pitch coach that will get you pitch ready!
   3. Pitch Night! On Thursday March 12th successful applicants will get the opportunity to pitch their solution to a panel of judges and the winners will be announced.
   4. Continued support from the DMZ!

Let’s hear from some of the past winners….

Contraverse

Meet founders Josh (Ryerson Media Production) and Marisa (Ryerson Masters Digital Media) who won a $10,000 Sandbox Student Grant in 2019 and are now pioneering the cinematic virtual reality industry, where VR allows users to become the main character in an out of this world storytelling experience. They have gone on to win a Canadian academy award, present their business in Berlin and managed a Hotdocs VR film Festival! Josh and Marisa said:

“The Sandbox Grant opened up so many doors for us! The biggest highlight was being able to hire developers that helped us get our product to the next level.”

Travelot

Next, meet Sam (Ryerson Electrical Engineering) who saw the $1 billion lost in non-refundable flights in 2017 and decided to create a solution. 

He founded Travelot, an online platform that allows travellers to sell their non-refundable flights and hotel reservations at a discounted price. The grant allowed him to complete market research with customers, onboard 126 users with 0 marketing costs, optimize his platform and business model and launch his beta website at the end of 2019. Travelot has made huge strides and will continue to do so in 2020, as Sam has learnt to strive for “continuous improvement over delayed perfection.”

We know that passionate students who think outside the box will be the entrepreneurs we need to solve the world’s biggest problems. 

Are you up for the challenge?

Women founders are a key part of a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem, yet they continue to make up a minority and face unique challenges. Recognizing this, the DMZ has launched a new Women Founders Series that brings together female founders from across different startup communities for roundtable discussions and candid conversations. The series kicked off on December 4, 2019 with keynote speaker Natalie Gray, Cofounder of Cover. Here’s a recap of what happened.

Natalie Gray’s Journey to Become a Two-Time Founder

Natalie Gray was born and raised in Mississauga, Ontario. After completing an undergrad in commerce at Queen’s University, Natalie was drawn to New York City to attend business school at New York University. While there, she landed herself a coveted job  at Rush Communications doing brand partnerships and marketing. 

During her time at Rush, she realized she stood out among her peers when it came to working with numbers. Wanting to deepen her differentiating skills, Natalie returned to Canada at age 22 and completed a three-year math degree in just one short year at Queen’s University. 

Although the experience was intense, Natalie says it proved to herself that she’s capable of working exceptionally hard, managing her time methodically and achieving success under pressure. She thinks what helped her most was her passion and drive to create a dream career for herself – a mindset that had rubbed off on her while in New York City.

After graduating, she – like other millennials at the time – entered into a job market that was suffering in the wake of a recession. However, she came across an opportunity to join three other people in co-founding a startup called StyleKick. After two and a half years of hard work, challenges, setbacks and successes, the app was absorbed by Shopify in an acqui-hire. Natalie and her co-founders joined the Shopify team for a brief time on the product and design teams; however, they  were itching to get back to the startup scene.

One weekend, while away at a cottage with her original co-founder crew, the foursome came up with a new idea – an app that would enable users to upload photos of their possessions (like their car, home or pets) and get quotes from several l insurance providers at once. They built a rudimentary version of the app in just 48 hours and their next venture, Cover, was born.

In 2016, Cover was accepted into Y Combinator and, over the next several years, Natalie helped the startup successfully close several large rounds of funding. The company has grown to over 130 people with offices located in Toronto,  San Francisco, and Los Angeles. 

Key Issues Facing Women Founders Today – and Strategies for Approaching Them

Natalie’s keynote address, along with the “ask me anything” session that followed, produced an engaging, honest and candid dialogue. Many of the 25 founders around the table shared both their successes and challenges and asked Natalie for practical advice on critical issues facing their startups today.

From the conversations, three salient themes emerged:

1. Women Founders Continue to Face Discrimination

Natalie and many of the women around the table shared honest accounts of their experiences with discrimination in the tech startup space – and in particular when trying to raise funding. 

Although each person’s experience was unique, there were noticeable commonalities between them. And, in many instances, these personal stories highlighted the intersectional nature of discrimination based on gender identity, race, nationality, parental status and so on.

Natalie shared several tips that she’s found particularly effective when approaching difficult situations, including asserting herself and speaking with a confident and controlled tone, bringing the conversation back to the business itself if it strays, not honouring questions that have discriminatory underpinnings, and seeking out investors that respect women and see the value of diversity in business. She also shared strategies that can help ensure women are represented on boards, leadership teams and across different areas of the organization. Finally, she made the point that if an investor wants to pass up on a lucrative business opportunity because of their bias, it’s their loss and someone else’s gain. 

2. Fostering Diversity within Startups is Necessary, Though Not Always Easy

Diversity is critical when it comes to business success. Diverse viewpoints, opinions and backgrounds strengthen a business and make it more resilient – this is something we know. Yet, it’s not always easy to achieve diversity, especially in the tech industry where certain groups are underrepresented. Moreover, some founders found it can be overwhelming dealing with day-to-day issues, let alone finding the time to put a thoughtful diversity strategy in place. 

To help, Natalie offered a few practical approaches that her company is taking to foster diversity amongst their workforce, including auditing the language used in job postings to reduce bias and promote inclusivity, being mindful that the images they post on social media reflect the makeup of their company, and empowering their team to tackle these issues in new, creative ways. .

3. Understanding Funding Options Empowers Founders to Make Better Decisions

The audience had many questions for Natalie about fundraising, given her unique expertise in this area. Natalie spent time explaining different funding options available to startups at various stages, and some of the key pros and cons of each. She fielded questions from the audience and helped to troubleshoot specific challenges that founders were facing. She also spoke about tactics founders can use to find people who will add value to your business, and how to know when it’s the right time to bring in an investor.

Natalie reminded the room that, as intense as investor pitches can be, the interview goes both ways––founders must assess if they’re a good fit for the business, while investors assess if the business is right for them. Since a startup is likely going to be working closely and over the long-term with their investors, it’s important to work with people who truly respect you and value the importance of intersectional diversity. 

All in all, the first edition of the Women Founder Series offered a unique opportunity for female founders to share their experiences and ask for advice. The conversation was candid, inspiring and packed with actionable tips. Thank you, Natalie, for kicking off our series with your impactful and highly useful conversation!

Want to attend to next event? Be the first to know by following us on social @RyersonDMZ

If you’re a Canadian on Instagram, you’ve most likely heard of 6ixbuzztv. The page with over one million followers has become the pulse of Toronto and its one-of-a-kind (and internationally recognized) culture.

With a following that includes Champagne Papi himself (Drake) to politicians like Ontario Premier Doug Ford, 6ixbuzztv has turned its Toronto (aka ‘the 6ix’) culture into a business with smart, yet subtle, branded content.

If this is your first time hearing about 6ixbuzztv, crawl out from under the rock you’ve been living under and check out some of their most popular posts:

So who are the people behind the 6ixbuzztv brand? Are they just another Instagram meme and gif page? Why is it getting so much attention?

Today marks 6ixbuzztv’s two year anniversary, and we’ve received the exclusive opportunity to interview the individuals behind it (a startup that is part of the DMZ roster).

Learn about their start, how they would describe what they’re doing, and where they see all of this heading, below.

How did 6ixbuzztv start out?

August 2017 – when I was attending George Brown College. It was called ‘NorthBound Buzz’, but then was switched to 6ixbuzztv. People quickly found the page’s humour was unique and very Toronto-centric. Through sourcing content and adding clever captions which were both comedic and informative, the account slowly started gaining traction.

Did you have any goals when starting out?

We found the way traditional broadcast shares news to be too traditional, censored, and un-engaging. And Canada has never had a platform that included breaking news, hip-hop and entertainment talent. As a team, we wanted to create a brand that also highlights stories, situations and relatable moments that never make the news, while also providing music artists an opportunity to receive much needed attention.

How do you get your content?

People DM (direct message) us (2000+ a day) on Instagram. Also, just searching online, you’d be surprised where the best videos are found.

How would you describe 6ixbuzztv today?

Canada’s #1 media outlet for buzzin’ news, entertainment, and hip-hop. Since then, we’ve fostered a unique community that is loyal to the Toronto brand, but is still relevant to the rest of the world.

Tell me more about the entertainment company you’re looking to grow 6ixbuzztv into?

1. Given that there’s no new age media outlets in Toronto, we wanted to give artists and entertainers a platform in which they can engage with an audience that traditional outlets have a difficult time reaching.
2. Given that we represent Toronto and Canada as a whole, we want to engage with the larger community to create positive change. This includes new initiatives like Cleanup Day, ThanksGiving Food Drive, Christmas Toy Drive, and more.
3. We want to create an experiential stream that runs exclusive events, concerts, and festivals that bring out our community and the best of our culture.

How do you pick the brands you work with?

Ideally, we like working with Canadian brands, specifically those that are innovative and open to engaging with our immediate community. However, we are growing out various other streams within the 6ixbuzztv brand and each one is open to creating great activations and curated campaigns.

Where is 6ixbuzztv headed next?

We want to continue growing original content series (i.e., not only content aggregation), while we work to release our website and app. You can look out for a special announcement from 6ixbuzztv in Fall 2019.

It’s clear that 6ixbuzztv isn’t your ordinary popular Instagram page, as the founder and partners behind the brand are far from ordinary. Time will tell how the rollout of their subsidiary brands will resonate with their growing audience. Given the household names that are clamouring to work with them and their hyper-engaged following, it’s safe to say that the 6ixbuzztv brand is destined to only go up from here.

-30- 

6ixbuzz is a proud member of the DMZ Black Innovation Programs (BIP), a free program designed to support very early-stage Black tech founders around the world with the aim to help them validate their business ideas and build their first prototype and MVP.

The digital age puts customers first.

It is crucial that the legal ecosystem uses technology to create seamless experiences for customers.

According to a recent report found by Canadian Lawyer, the legal industry is worth $30 billion in Canada. Despite being one of the slowest industries to adopt technology, the emergence of legal startups today is unprecedented, and Canada needs to keep up as there are ample opportunities for innovation within the sector.

Derek Hopfner and co-founder Shane Murphy were practicing lawyers prior to starting Founded. Their third co-founder, Travis Houlette, had previously started his own company and sold it to Yahoo. Throughout that process, Travis felt the experience was not as transparent as he expected it to be, so the trio decided to dig into finding solutions to make the legal experience faster, more efficient and collaborative for entrepreneurs.

Simplicity, innovation and trust are the company’s main values. A key factor to Founded’s success is their online platform that automates business legal workflows: from generating documents and capturing eSignatures, to filings with government and making legal work easily accessible.

Originally focused on automating routine legal work for small business and startups, Founded now extends its reach to law firms. They work with more than 1000+ businesses, law firms, accounting firms and large enterprises to automate legal tasks like incorporating, ongoing company compliance, government filings and legal agreements.

The Founded user experience is unlike any other due to the diverse mix of legal and non-legal experience the employees of the company have. According to Hopfner, hiring people who have no previous experience in the legal industry makes their product more digestible for the masses and creates more streamlined experiences.  

“No one cares that you’re building anything. When you’re building a product, you have to think about your sales distribution channels,” says Hopfner. “You have to be building a product for a specific audience, and understand how your target market will consume it in a really easy way.”

While navigating legal jargon may not seem like an exciting endeavour for users, Founded aims to change that. “Our goal is to make the legal side of business effortless. When using Founded, entrepreneurs have a better understanding of their legal work and company data, while saving time and money.”  

The only problem with innovation in the legal industry is that there are established models such as billing that do not prioritize efficiencies especially if work is being charged at an hourly rate. With Founded’s technology, entrepreneurs take charge with the ability to translate complex legal concepts into straightforward language in a fast and effective manner.  

Want to learn more about Founded? Visit their website.
Twitter:@FoundedCo
Instagram: @FoundedHQ

Entrepreneur-in-Residence turned founder Michelle Caers has been on both sides of the DMZ accelerator offer. An expert in user experience design, she has been a resident coach to our startups for the past three years, while simultaneously working on getting her edtech company Crowdmark on its feet. Her mission – to enrich the learning and teaching experience for students and educators by transforming assessment into a dialogue for improvement.

Technology is changing the face of education at a rapid pace.

With the availability of ample information online and various emerging educational institution models, it is becoming difficult for students to see the value of HigherEd. Universities must re-evaluate the ways they can change the educational experience in order for them to keep up with innovative trends and for students to see the true value of accredited degrees.

A catalyst for that change is in the feedback loop provided for students; a byproduct of time-savings.

Originating with UofT mathematics Professor James Colliander, Crowdmark provides a solution to a real life problem. Faced with grading 5,000 exams by hand during the 2011 Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge, Colliander realized there needed to be a more effective practical marking process instead of the cumbersome red pen on paper approach.

Crowdmark’s artificial intelligence analyzes vast datasets generating unparalleled insights into teaching and learning. These insights help drive innovation in grading for educators and support personalized learning for students.

Rooted in the belief that teaching and learning are fundamentally a human-to-human exchange, the grading platform focuses on automating repeatable actions, eliminating pain points that educators experience when marking student workpapers and providing rich, formative feedback on exams and assignments. The tool increases educator’s productivity by 75%, allowing more time to focus on providing meaningful, constructive feedback to learners. It further provides a direct positive impact on students as it allows for electronic submissions, reducing paper waste and the anxiety of meeting tight deadlines.

“AI shouldn’t replace human interaction, it should enhance people’s experience. You can automate a spreadsheet or anything that’s repetitive and predictable with machine learning, but you cannot replace human judgement in high stakes decision making situations,” Caers says.

Time-savings, increased productivity and more meaningful connections with learners are only a few of the highlights in Crowdmark’s value proposition, and for some educational institutions, it’s even changed their pedagogy. “At McGill University, they used to do a lot of multiple choice exams, but once they implemented our application, they now have a more robust assessment strategy.”

Caers has shared a wealth of advice as a resident DMZ EiR and she is definitely not a stranger when it comes to closing large sales deals. “To close impactful deals, you need to understand the buying processes and security regulations in the industry you’re operating in. We supported  our champions by listening to what our organizations want, and delivered accordingly.”

With 37 million papers already graded and institutions like the University of Toronto, University of Waterloo and University of Southern California using the platform, Crowdmark is using insights to continuously build more features to enhance their offer and continue to lead improvements for educators and learners.

To have an edtech company excel in our space as a university-backed accelerator, confirms our impact and mission.

Learn more about the company: @crowdmark | crowdmark.com