Lost in the woods? We can guide you.

Register to join us at DiscoveryLab's next meeting. Pitch a business plan (by Zoom) in any tech sector including biomedical, agriculture, environmental, life sciences, artificial intelligence or energy. Alternatively join in the discussions and provide your expertise and advice to a growing team. Check out the past presenters below. Many have gone on to build new companies and secure funding, with over $125 million raised by our alumni in the past 2 years. You are welcome to join our growing community of researchers making a difference to society.

Testimonials

"Our project has picked up significantly since we last presented at DiscoveryLab. We have partnered to expand our program for the treatment of COVID-19 patients and we are now at 22 sites."

"Our DiscoveryLab presentation led to participation of 2 investors in our seed round, a strategic machine learning technology development partnership, a remote patient monitoring collaboration with a University, and this week’s announcement of an exciting product launch."

"We received a connection to TEC Edmonton which resulted in mentorship and admission into an accelerator."

"The suggestions I got from the DiscoveryLab meeting were great. Thanks!"

"I would like to thank you for organizing the pitch event. We were very happy about the outcome of the pitch. We wanted some advice and that's what we got. We would love to pitch again."

"I wanted to send a note to thank you very much for the opportunity to present yesterday. We enjoyed the experience and also were able to resolve an issue."

"My company got funding."

General Schedule for DiscoveryLab Events

Teams are welcome to present a plan in 10 minutes. A supportive panel of business experts and investors then provide free advice in a private round table discussion.

Early stage ventures, academics, start-ups and SMEs are welcome to present their plan and will be given tailored advice on how to commercialize, spin out, scale and reach new markets.

For clarity, DiscoveryLab does not recommend advisors or investors, but can make introductions. Each person and company has the responsibility of obtaining legal advice and performing due diligence before signing contracts or taking investments.

DISCLAIMER: The plans, thoughts, and opinions expressed by presenters belong solely to the presenters. DiscoveryLab and Science Capital do not support or promote the research presented, we provide an open forum for discussion. A video recording of the web conferences will be given to Advisors, Funders & Investors to help them make decisions regarding allocation of advice and resources.

DiscoveryLab Presenters on April 22, 2021:

Grant Kelba, Regenitech Canada
Barry Farquharson, CEO, Nova Green Inc.
John Ralston, CEO and Founder, PROTXX Inc.
Michael J. Weickert, PhD, CEO, Pacylex Pharmaceuticals
Mathew Diggle, Founder & CEO, TestNTravel
Danika Kelly, Co-Founder, My Normative Inc.
Stephen Ferry, Director, Hermod Medical
Carlos Cervera on a clinical trial to treat COVID-19 patients
Ty McKinney, Co-Founder, 8 Bit Cortex

Ty McKinney pitched 8 Bit Cortex at DiscoveryLab on April 22, 2021. He is looking for advisors, and is addressing a challenge identified at NeuroNexus.

New ventures, SMEs and startups at any stage are invited to registor as are advisors interested in joining our panel. No bystanders please, everyone is asked to participate actively.

Anyone is welcome to register to pitch a business idea or plan in any field, at any stage, and from any province.

An updated executive summary of your business plan must be submitted to finalize your pitching slot.

Note: Please tell us if you can't make it in to pitch, unjustified last minute cancellations and no-shows are subject to a charge of $20 as they prevent others from pitching to our advisors.

We thank those who have presented including:

2S Water: Anthea Sargeaunt
99bits: Abdullah Choudhry,
48 Hour Discovery: Samantha Kwok & Ratmir Derda
8 Bit Cortex, Co-Founder, Ty McKinney
Airterra CEO Rob Lavoie
Alpine Innovative Research, Dane Bosman: Air Sniper
Alberta Precision Labs, Clinical Microbiologist, Mathew Diggle
Antibiddies Technologies: D Marchant, L Bilawchuk & F West
Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation, Rakesh Bhat
Autoimmune Hepatitis: A. Landi & A. Clementin
Awele Technologies: Godfrey Okeke
Bessie Founder Spencer Kerber
BioAro, Amir Nezhad, University of Calgary
BioImmuno Designs: Shairaz Baksh
BioLargo: Richard Smith
Biomedarmour, Simon Park, University of Calgary
Biomimetic Exosomes: Kunal Karan & Arin Sen
BitCan Geosciences & Engineering, Yanguang Yuan
Bitcoin Air: Bretton Whervin
Blindman Brewing: Kirk Zembal & Shane Groendahl
Boron Heterocycles for Drug Discovery: Dennis Hall
Biomarkers for Pediatric Cancer: Aru Narendran
Breast Cancer Biomarkers: Carrie
BYBOCAM CEO & Founder Ketsia Lombosso Engoya
Canada NeuroTech: Yvonne Wong, CUE
Canadian BioSample Repository: Bruce Ritchie
Canadian Rockies Hemp Corp, Aaron Barr
Carlos Cervera: Early use of Tocilizumab for COVID-19
Cheminger Inc: Nataraj Pagadala
Childhood Pneumonia Biomarkers: Qaasim Mian
Chipcare, Lynn McNeil
Click & Push: Martin Ferguson-Pell
Click & Push Accessiblity Inc. COO Sydney Hampshire
CliniSonics: Roger Zemp
COMS: Centre for Online Mental health Support, Peter Silverstone
Creative Protein Solutions, CEO, Daria Venkova
Criticare Dx: Amir Nezhed
Crowdblink, Trevor Macdonald
Daphe Water Solutions, CTO, Luisa Orsini
Dealcloser: Amir Reshef
Drug Discovery Chemical Space: Dennis Hall
Easy fMRI and Easy Data: Tony Yousefnezhad
EcoVitro: Lion Budrass
EHCAPS, Amrich by Tanveer Ahmad
Elsius Biomedical, Alessandro Biglioli: ECMO
ENTiD: Rahul Arora
Entos Pharmaceuticals: John Lewis & Arun Raturi
Farmer's Legacy Biotech, CEO,Pankaj Purwar,
Flu Fighting Chickens: Katharine Magor
FluroTech, CEO, Dan Dalla-Londa
Fly and Fetch: Shelvie Fernan & Victoria Celi
Food Wastes to Alternative Energy: Peter Johnson
Fourien: Faheem Khan
FREDsense Technologies Corp, Co-Founder, Robert Mayall
Gane Ka-Shu Wong: nucleic acids based covid-19 diagnostics
Guanqun Chen, Plant Biotechnology Lab, University of Alberta
Health District: Khurram Jahangir
Health Gauge: Randy Duguay & Bruce Matichuk
Hempact: Nicole Sanchez, Jenny Li & Anka Chan
High Density Power Conversion: Zhongyi Quan
Human Cytomegalovirus: James Nieman
illumiSonics: Roger Zemp
IMBiotechnologies: Michael Stewart
Giant Health: Inbound Trade Mission, Barry Shrier
HOPE Project, Dawn Kingston
Inclusion Playland: Rebecca Murray
Inkubate Packaging, Travis Dahl
InPlanta Biotechnology, Director, Igor Kovalchuk
iYu Inc: Mike Wade, Concordia University Edmonton
Kent Imaging, Pierre Lemire
Khaled Barakat: small molecule inhibitor design
KRS Biopharma: Tina Rinker
Lenica Research Group: Simba Nyazika
LKSAVI: Lorne Tyrell
MagnetTx: Gino Fallone
Mahdi Tavakoli: Robotic System Following Injury
Medo.ai, David Quail & Jeevesh Kapur
Meros Polymers: Afsaneh Lavasanifar
Metric Technologies, Abdullah Saleh
MITS: Jeremie Bourqui
Metabolomic Technologies Inc: Lu Deng
mmHg Inc: Peter Wood & Dr. Raj Padwal
My Normative Inc., Co-Founder, Danika Kelly
Nabati Foods, President, Ahmad Yehya
Nanologaudio: Adam Brown
Nanostics: Colin Coros
Nectar, Co-Founder & CEO, Marc-André Roberge
Neuraura CEO Pierre Wijdenes and COO Claire Dixon
New Paradigm Hempery, Luc d'Abadie
Nova Green Inc., CEO, Barry Farquharson
ofbrains: Alireza Bahramian
OPTEL Group, Louis-Olivier Roy
OrigamAi, CEO, Kyle McLeod
Outbreaker Solutions: Brayden Whitlock
OVA, CEO, Harold Dumur
Palliative Care Matters: Konrad Fassbender
Pacylex: M Weickert, J Mackey, R Heit & L Berthiaume
PainWorth: Mike Zouhri
PEARKO Therapeutics,Gavin Oudit
Phelix, Co-Founder,Varun Pulapaka
Pleasant Solutions, Thomas Stachura
Polar Canadian Swine LLP: Alfred Wahl
Praeventus Corporation: Jerome Yager, UofA
Prominent: A Flynn, R Burrell, T McMullen & T Briggs
Protxx: John Ralston
Qualisure Diagnostics: David Bocking & Oliver Bathe
Quantum Silicon Inc, Robert Wolkow
Rafiq Ahmad: Smart Engineering Solutions to Cope with COVID-19
Rapid Prototyping: Suresh Nayar
Rashid Mirzavand: Multi-Parameter Wireless Bio-Sensor System
RAZN Health Decision Modelling: Negin Razavilar
Regenitech Canada, Grant Kelba
Repertoire Immune Systems, Karsten Sauer
Reveal Medical Corp, CEO Steve Jakeway
Revive Wellness Inc: Loreen Wales
RJH Biosciences: Juliana Valencia & Remant KC
Roshan Water Solutions Inc: Amirreza Sohrabi
Safe Contact Solutions, Kevin Maloney
SafeSpaceHealth: Khurram Jahangir
Sawback Technologies, Founder, Neil Keown
SensorUp Founder & CTO Steve Liang
Sialogene: Chris Cairo
Siberian Meat Dumplings, Mark Friesen
SMALP Network: Michael Overduin
SN Biomedical: Hillary Sweet & Matthew Nickel
SolAeroMed, John Dennis
Solar Oxygen: Nicolas Conradi
Staffing Call, CEO and Founder, Adam Balogh
ST Innovations Business Development Manager, Jonathan Butterworth
Story City: Emily Craven
Summit Nanotech, Drew Moxon,
Sunmor Research Inc, Medical Director, Kevin Morin,
Surgical Simulation: Bin Zheng
Swae CEO Soushiant Zanganehpour
Symbiotic EnviroTek Inc., CTO, Jeremy Sluyters
Syantra Diagnostics: Tina Rinker
Syngli: Simon Overduin
Targeting LPA Signaling: David Brindley
Technology Shops, Steve Lloyd: CoronaHood
Tele-Rehabilitation, Martin Ferguson-Pell
Terrahub, Elena Dumitrascu
TestNTravel, Founder & CEO, Mathew Diggle
ThermoReCON: Larry Unsworth
ThyroSPEC: Paul Stewardson
The TireGrabber: Darcy Goossen
TMIC, James Harynuk
Token Naturals, CEO & Co-Founder, Keenan Pascal
Umay Care: Sharmin Habib
Unit9: CoronaSaver, Martin Percy
Vanier Institute of the Family, CEO, Nora Spinks
Virtual Orthodontic Residency: Tarek El-Bialy
WWiKY Theranostica: Len Wiebe & Piyush Kumar
XoTech: Amir Sanati Nezhad
ZAFA Rapid Biorefinery: Aman Ullah
Zenxmed and Openxmed: Colm Murphy
Zept, CEO,Gregg Oldring

Tips for pitching your plan

Presenters are asked to give the organizers their business plan summary (1 or 2 pages) a week before and their slide-deck the day before the event. This way we can ensure technical compatibility and line up the talks to minimize any downtime.
Feel free to bring your own Flash drive or computer with cable and adapter.
Arrive about 10 minutes early to get oriented. You’ll be given a debrief and evaluation after your pitch.
Stay on time (10 minutes for a full presentation, or 2-5 minutes for an elevator pitch) to ensure there is enough time for Q&A.
Say a few words of background about yourself to start out the presentation.
Focus on the business plan, not technical or proprietary detail (which you can cover in follow up meetings if desired). Show how this presented a unique and timely opportunity for scalable growth, investment and/or partnering.
Turn complexity and jargon into plain English. Use accessible pictures or videos. Avoid technical terms and abstraction. Instead, give specific examples, numbers and explain.
Be passionate. Present potential risks as well as plans and successes. Show confidence and ambition.
Don't be boastful or flaunt your ego.
Engage with your team and panel, listening carefully and taking constructive criticism.
Don’t read your talk. Notes are ok. Rehearse beforehand to get the timing, clarity and impact right.

Slide guidance

A graphic image or video communicates better than text. Avoid crowded collages.
Text is not needed. Spoken words communicate more effectively. If text is used, a few lines should suffice. Avoid slides which consist of only a headline and list of bullet-points.
Show several slides which each present a single idea, graph, image or data type, and form a progression, e.g. from challenge, opportunity, discovery, reality check, to future plan.
Aim for no more than 1 slide per minute.
Keep a clear surrounding margin around text for increased legibility.
Sans-serif fonts (e.g. Helvetica) are easier to read at a distance than serif fonts (e.g. Times).
Use a simple background.
Use high-resolution images that are from your work, are licensed, or else attribute the source.
For data graphs or charts, use a text font size that can be read from the back of a board room, including labels on x- and y-axes and data points.