Design for Startups

Fall 2022

Over the course of 12 weeks, nine student designers will work directly with the technical and business leads of nine companies to explore and develop a new methodology for connecting design to Internet startups as part of Design for Startups.

Fall 2022 company-student partnerships are:

Atrexis Systems Limited is a fintech company that specializes in multi-currency accounting applications for corporations and investment funds.

Owen Xu will work with Atrexis Systems Limited.

ConnectionPoint is the premier platform for collaborative funding. Our mission is to help causes, companies, and community members work together to fund impactful projects. Through our destination sites, FundRazr for nonprofits, CoCoPay for healthcare payments, and CrowdFundr for creators, we have raised more than $250M through 200k+ campaigns in over 100 countries.

Liyang Zha will work with ConnectionPoint.

FirstHx  is a patient-driven knowledge-based medical history taking system that helping patients communicate their medical stories to the health care team.

Shriya Maru will work with FirstHx.

GoChip Pet Technology Inc. reimagines the relationship between people, animals and cities. We believe that every dog and their story, should be Always Found™ and in order to ensure this we have created patent pending technology that links an animal’s GoChip Unified Digital Identity to their permanent Identity. Our technology has been used in Indonesia and India to help combat the spread of rabies and manage dog populations.

Siddhant Singh will work with GoChip.

Halitra is developing an investment platform that enables HVAC service firms to identify energy efficiency interventions in small commercial buildings and matches them with financial institutions and utilities seeking to invest in energy efficiency.

Priyanka Poulose will work with Halitra.

UpMeals is a Vancouver-based food technology company on a mission to make healthy, nutritious meals available 24/7. Innovative SmartVending machines, direct to consumer eCommerce, and B2B solutions provide custom, healthy, sustainably packaged meals that meet the highest food safety standards. UpMeals uses proprietary AI-driven software to create their custom meal solutions and reduce food waste. Using the data collected from their platform, UpMeals uses their software to improve menu offerings based on user feedback and popularity.

Jocelyn Qiao will work with UpMeals.

At NZ Technologies Inc., we have observed an unmet need for touchless human-machine interfaces. With our experience in commercializing such interfaces for surgeons in the clinical field, we stand by the necessity to equip the public with a solution that not only breaks the link of disease transmission (via high-touch surfaces) but also defines a new standard of use for the post-pandemic world. We have created an interactive touch-free technology coined HoverTap. It is a novel human-machine interface composed of a proprietary capacitive sensor that can detect the 3D location of a human finger. This sensor can be envisioned as a picture frame that is placed over the top of an LCD screen or a panel of physical buttons. This ‘sensor frame’ enables simple touch-free controls (e.g., finger-taps and swipes in the air) above, for example, a touchscreen or elevator call buttons. Without the use of a camera (and related privacy concerns), HoverTap enables any user to conduct quick and simple touchless interactions that feel familiar.

Rutuja Haldankar will work with NZ Technologies.

Rocketbrew is an all in one competitive analytics solution. Our SaaS platform unlocks $12B of black box ecommerce data. We equip brands with the power to travel back in time and break down competitive strategies so they can be armed for the future. We are engaging with leading brands like Native and Dr.Squatch to reimagine the commerce tools of tomorrow.

Joshua Louie will work with Rocketbrew.

Virtuo is an all in one competitive analytics solution. Our SaaS platform unlocks $12B of black box ecommerce data. We equip brands with the power to travel back in time and break down competitive strategies so they can be armed for the future. We are engaging with leading brands like Native and Dr.Squatch to reimagine the commerce tools of tomorrow.

Alex Dabecki will work with Virtuo.

This project is generously supported by the National Research Council of Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) Fall 2022 – Spring 2024.