Championing Entrepreneurs
Whether they are Ryerson faculty or students, or members of the wider community, Ryerson continues to be the central hub for aspiring entrepreneurs to incubate and advance business or product ideas, or accelerate their proofs-of-concept into the creation of companies and jobs.
Ryerson Zone Highlights
In the past fiscal year, the companies supported by the Ryerson zones have reported:
304 Full-time jobs created
204+ New products and services brought to market
8,000+ New national and international customers
Founded through a partnership between Ryerson, the University of Ontario Institute for Technology and Simon Fraser University, I-INC enables science- and technology-related startups to scale up towards commercialization through the development of new markets and relationships with strategic partners and customers.
Through 2016-17, I-INC incubators delivered 201 programming events and admitted 166 new digital technology and gaming clients to their programs. In addition, along with the Ontario Campus-Linked Accelerator program, I-INC supports Ryerson’s Zone Learning. In Ryerson’s innovation ecosystem, the DMZ is the largest incubator and ranked as the number one university-based incubator in the world by UBI Global.
201 Programming events delivered
166 New digital technology and gaming clients
An alumni of the DMZ’s accelerator program, Peekapak is an educational/technology startup that provides educators with easy-to-use, standards-aligned research-based tools to help young children learn social-emotional skills such as empathy and resilience. With a focus on educators in the US market, Peekapak utilized I-INC support to forge strategic partnerships in two US school districts, set up new research projects and generate over 40 sales leads.
Marion Surgical is a virtual reality and haptic feedback training platform that enables surgeons to learn, collaborate and practice procedures in a 3D environment. Fostered through the Biomedical Zone, the simulations provide full haptic (sense of touch and proprioception) feedback for surgeons to obtain real operating experience and provide patients with improved care.
A social innovation organization developed with support from the SocialVentures Zone, GreenStory helps businesses communicate to consumers the significance of socially responsible, sustainable products through an interactive and intuitive online platform that shows impacts related to emissions, energy, water and waste when a customer selects that business’s products.