Design for Startups

Fall 2025

Over the course of 12 weeks, eight student designers will work directly with the technical and business leads of eight companies to apply design thinking in shaping product development, strategy, and innovation as part of Design for Startups.

Air Trail digitizes pilot and maintenance workflows for regional air operators leading to improved regulatory compliance, safety, and internal efficiency.

Abhishek Singh Bais will work with Air Trail on redesigning the pilot iPad app interface to make flight data entry more intuitive and efficient.

Stocky AI is a B2B procurement platform purpose-built to solve critical inefficiencies between buyers and sellers in the food supply chain. Stocky AI serves farms, distributors, cooperatives, and retailers, providing them with a unified system for inventory management, ordering, payments, and data insights.

Chloe Jun will work with Stocky AI to improve one area of the platform’s user experience, focusing on usability and clarity of key workflows.

Disposal Queen is a Richmond-based smart bin waste management company serving Metro Vancouver. Established in 2012, the company offers residential and commercial bin rentals, dumpster services, and recycling solutions without long-term contracts or hidden fees. Their services cater to various clients, including retail stores, banks, schools, construction companies, and apartment building. Disposal Queen emphasizes transparent pricing and customer satisfaction, allowing clients to adjust or cancel services without penalties. They operate an eco-friendly fleet powered by compressed natural gas (CNG) and maintain a paperless office to minimize environmental impact. The company is accredited by the Better Business Bureau with an A+ rating and has received positive customer feedback for its reliable service and clear billing practices.

Mahtab Foroozandeh Shahraki will work with Disposal Queen on improving the digital experience for recurring customers using the online service portal.

Autochart.ai is building the next generation of AI health assistants that help clinicians document faster, communicate better, and care smarter. They turn voice and visual input into structured clinical notes and actionable summaries, streamlining workflows across the entire patient journey. Their team is developing cutting-edge voice, visual and text-based AI models and integrating them into real-world clinical environments. They’re also integrating novel UX/UI interfaces that sit at the intersection of care delivery and design innovation. By reimagining how providers interact with technology, they aim to restore the human connection in healthcare while improving outcomes, efficiency and equity.

Emily Qiang will work with Autochart.ai on enhancing the web platform’s recording and documentation interfaces to support physician workflows.

RxPx / Curatio’s mission is No Patient Alone. They help patients get the personalized information and disease management tools they need to achieve their best outcomes, and give HCPs an easier way to ensure their patients are safeguarded.

Shirley Zhao will work with RxPx on creating design system foundations and visual guidelines to ensure a consistent mobile app experience.

Elastic Energy builds an orchestration engine that connects, controls and monetizes distributed energy resources including solar, storage, EVs and smart devices. Their technology coordinates these assets to participate in energy markets, optimize energy usage and generate new revenue streams all through a single integration.

Avid Alamzadeh Harjandi will work with Elastic Energy on improving the usability of a residential energy management app, beginning with enhancements to the billing screen and expanding into broader design patterns.

ARDOR is a connected fitness network that brings personal training and community fitness together. Whether you’re training with friends, subscribing to an online trainer, or participating in a live class, ARDOR’s predictive model tailors every workout uniquely to your abilities, goals, and past performance—ensuring everyone experiences the ideal training, measurable personal progress, and, importantly, meaningful community engagement.

Grishma Shah will work with ARDOR on refining the user experience of their iOS app and the web-based interface for trainers, balancing usability with feature-rich design.

Clause Technology is a software automation firm, focusing on the research and development of software for clients across different industries. They identify pain points in a given industry that can be addressed by intelligent automation, partner with domain experts as consultants, and develop a solution which we then pitch to clients. Some of the products they have developed in the past include:

• Maritime criminality: automating data collection for news articles on different offense categories.
• Architecture and Civil Engineering: automating building code compliance checks.

Nayla Kiandra will work with Clause Technology on streamlining workflows and improving clarity in their building code compliance platform.

This project is generously supported by the National Research Council of Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) Fall 2024 – Spring 2026.