It all started when TandemLaunch’s founder, Helge Seetzen, was given a chance to participate in the Mitacs Accelerate program while he was a PhD student at UBC’s Structured Surface Physics lab. In 2002, Helge and a team at the lab developed a new way to control the brightness of visual screens and sold it to audio and cinema giant Dolby Laboratories.

By 2010, he’d formed TandemLaunch, a company that takes young scientists and entrepreneurs in universities and gives them seed money and coaching to transform their ideas into profitable businesses.

As a Computer Science major from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Ray has always had an interest in networks and networking — both on computers, and among people. This interest has served him well as he helped to build a household notification system that helps family members to keep track of domestic chores and appointments, as well as to inform each other of personal schedules and shared commitments.

PhD student Megan MacGillivray from UBC's Department of Rehabilitation Sciences partnered with SideStix Ventures Inc. to evaluate the biomechanics of their high-performance forearm crutch.

Watch founder Sarah Doherty and intern Megan explain their innovation.

Paulina is part of a team working on the Centre for Youth and Society’s “Stronger Together” research project that includes Indigenous community knowledge keepers and students from the Indigenous Communities Counselling program in the Department of Educational Psychology and Leadership Studies. She has assisted in building the knowledge base for two projects involving indigenous culture as it relates to youth mental health, and to youth cultural identity.

I knew I wouldn’t pass up the opportunity but I was still scared.  When I arrived in Rio de Janeiro, I had no idea what to expect. It was my first trip to South America, I didn’t speak any Portuguese, and I only knew my Brazilian supervisor, whom I’d met once before.

After I landed, I was greeted at the airport and taken to UFRJ and then to my apartment in Santa Teresa, an old neighbourhood on a hill. Once I looked out my window and saw the view of the bay and Sugarloaf Mountain, I realized just where I was. It was amazing.

Found in the glacial deposit at Kisameet Bay on the British Columbia coast, the clay, now trademarked as “Kisolite”, is naturally antimicrobial.

Kisameet Glacial Clay Inc. has exclusive rights to harvest the clay for commercial use.  But the company needed solid scientific evidence of its medicinal properties prior to going to market.