Schulich Startup Night Attracts 300 Attendees
The 12th edition of Schulich Startup Night (SSN) attracted nearly 300 students, alumni and industry professionals yesterday. This bi-annual event gives students and alumni an opportunity to pitch their business ideas to a panel of top industry professionals for a chance to win a $5000 cash prize.
Chris Carder, Schulich Entrepreneur-in-Residence and Schulich Startup Night Organizer, and Dezsö J. Horváth, Dean of the Schulich School of Business, kicked off the event with special welcome remarks.
“The entrepreneurial spirit at Schulich has never been stronger,” said Dean Horváth. “I am proud to report that we now have 100 companies in the Schulich Startups Community, and we also have eight to ten new Schulich startups joining that community every month. In the past 12 months alone, we completed 400 coaching sessions with Schulich Founders and aspiring entrepreneurs – an incredible number!”
“More and more alumni are giving their time and talent to mentor our emerging startups and help promote their new enterprises,” added Dean Horváth.
The alumni pitches featured Seema Sanghavi (IMBA’10) with Cooks Who Feed, Cypher Chi (MBA ’09) with Homadorma, and Kamil Shafiq (iBBA ’15) with Pocket App.
The student pitches featured Yash Chauhan & Vladimir Martintsov (MMgt ’20) with YU Ride, Veronica Shih (iBBA ‘20) with BeautyDel, and Amy Ge (MBA/JD ‘21) with Multii.
While the judges deliberated in the green room, featured Keynote Speaker, Eva Lau (MBA ‘05), Managing Director and Co-Founder of Two Small Fish Ventures, took the stage.
She shared how her time at Wattpad helped her become a venture capitalist and she left the audience with three major points: seize the opportunity; reach out to the global market; and innovate from within to grow.
After much anticipation, the judges announced Seema Sanghavi (IMBA’10) as ‘Schulich Startup Night Alumni Winner’ and Amy Ge (MBA/JD ‘21) as ‘Schulich Startup Night Student Winner’. Kamil Shafiq (iBBA ’15) took home the ‘People’s Choice Award’.
Thank you to our generous sponsors, including our Official Cash Prize Sponsor, Audrey S. Hellyer Charitable Foundation, our Supporting Sponsors, Innovation York and Zeifman, and our Prizing Sponsors, Aluvion Law, BEST Lab, Indochino, Mentor Works, and Ownr. We sincerely appreciate your support of Schulich student and alumni startups.
Congratulations to all the winners! The 13th edition of Schulich Startup Night will be returning on March 12th.