About Vice-Principal ResearchKINGSTON, ONTARIO (JULY 15, 2020) – Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation (QPI) is pleased to welcome the second cohort of companies to the Wings Acceleration program, which launched on June 24th and provides early stage founders with tools and guidance to help them assess the feasibility of their business idea, validate their proposed value proposition, and begin the development of a viable business model.
The Wings Accelerator is one of two cohort acceleration programs offered by Queen’s under the Scale-Up Platform, an initiative led by Invest Ottawa in Eastern Ontario and of which QPI is a regional partner. The Scale-Up Platform is supported by the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).
Previously delivered in-person at the Queen’s Startup Runway facilities located in the Seaway Coworking building in downtown Kingston, the second cohort is participating in the program via Zoom. Founders are also receiving support via virtual 1:1 mentoring sessions with the Accelerator facilitators, Elza Seregelyi and Andrew Jackson.
Participants are already benefiting from what they learned in the first day of programming:
“Customer Discovery is an intimidating topic that has often overwhelmed me as a first-time founder and entrepreneur, but the Wings program broke it down step-by-step making it much more manageable. I can already tell the one-on-one coaching time with Andrew and Elza will be extremely valuable and cannot wait to see what comes next!” said Morgan Lehtinen, founder of Filter for Oils Separation.
Tim O’Hara, CEO and Founding Partner of Hülpr stated, “Day one was informative and designed to get participants engaged and thinking from the get-go. Facilitators clearly have a solid grasp of the material and although each participant has a different product or service... the content was presented in a manner that allowed us to view it as relevant to our business models.”
QPI selected the following nine companies to participate in the program, which will be delivered over the next two months and will conclude with a pitch day on August 26th:
Canada Streaming Inc. – commercializing branded ecological gold powered by nanotechnology and blockchain innovation in cleantech with Brazilian subsidiary, Amazon Fair Gold, reducing mercury and cyanide's destruction of Amazon Rain Forest and its carbon sequestration
Coutts Industries – designing and building prototype engines with extreme horsepower and no oil changes
Filter for Oils Separation – remediating oil-contaminated water and reducing waste through the development of smart inexpensive filters that efficiently separate detergent-stabilized oil/water mixtures without adding chemicals
Hülpr – developing and launching a web-based application that connects people needing services, with a focus on vulnerable populations, to local gig economy style individuals and small, medium and large businesses, providing a more robust onboarding and vetting process than traditional online service connectors
NüCure Naturals – working with charities, universities and research labs to use natural, organic compounds with medicinal properties and strategically combining them to create synergistic effects, greater than that of individual ingredients, enabling NüCure to deliver accessible products free of harmful side effects and treating more specific medical needs than current market offerings
Nurenyx – applying Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Extended-Reality (XR) technologies to create an XR integrated platform for 24/7 health communications and a HealthBot to meet healthcare needs
Optima Analytics – providing AI and Analytics software solutions
Path2Zero – creating economy-of-scale purchasing power, enabling small businesses to purchase eco-products and adopt a low carbon footprint approach in response to the climate crisis and new society demands
UVC Ultraclean – offering a combination of manufacturing and consulting services in the field of UV disinfection technology
The Wings/Growth Acceleration program was made possible with support from the Government of Canada to Queen’s University through the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario and the Scale-Up Platform Project which is led by Invest Ottawa in eastern Ontario and by Queen’s in the Kingston region