The StartWell Podcast

This special episode is the first of 5 talks delivered on stage at StartWell's Event Space on King St W in downtown Toronto on November 28, 2019 for a globally roaming annual series called Dark Futures. This talk was presented by Geoff Snack, a strategist at the Toronto design and experience agency JAM3, and is titled "New materiality Things that don't exist" *Dark Futures is presented by globally...

In this studio session we sit down with Matt Cohen, the Managing Partner of Ripple Ventures which is a Toronto based early stage venture fund focused on B2B software. Ripple takes a hands-on approach to enabling the success of the companies which they invest in and Matt explains not only why its important to him but also how Ripple has created a platform that helps their portfolio through providin...

A frank discussion between Business of Cannabis ' Jay Rosenthal and Tricia Lackey, Superette's Director of Brand Experience, relating issues being faced by retailers of Cannabis in Ontario. *Recorded at the second edition of our speaker series focused on the emerging economy of Cannabis in Canada. [expand title="Podcast Transcript"] Qasim Virjee 0:07 Welcome back to this the 23rd episode of the st...

This brief 20 minute talk touches on the magic that happens when people come together. David introduces the role of 'collaboration artist' and more... About David's company BizBash is North America’s #1 source of ideas, news, and resources for event and meeting professionals. Each month nearly 225,000 unique users look to BizBash for venue discovery, event style, technology, and tools for their ne...

This time around we're publishing a live-recorded panel discussion moderated by local cannabis accelerator program Leaf Forward as part of our new monthly Cannabinoid Futures speaker series.  This inaugural edition of our series brought  Vanmala Subramaniam (National Post), Matt Lamers (Marijuana Business Daily) and Jay Rosenthal (Business of Cannabis) together on the mic. [expand title="Podcast T...

TheAppLabb, founded in Toronto in 2007, is a striking example of how digital services agencies need to stay on top of constantly accelerating technological innovation to not only remain relevant but grow.  In this session we sit down with its founder, Kundan Joshi. *Learn more about Kundan's company here:  https://theapplabb.com/ [expand title="Podcast Transcript"] Qasim Virjee 0:15 All right back...

This time around we're in the studio with StartWell member company Emergence Labs - a business technology consulting form and Salesforce implementation partner focused on helping small to medium sized businesses adopt new technologies that can help them database and better use their information. *Learn more about Emergence Labs on their website at https://emergencelabs.io/ [expand title="Podcast T...

MotivBase has created the world's only Artificial Intelligence powered Anthropologist that can predict trends that will shape consumer behaviour. In this episode we sit down with cofounder Ujwal Arkalgud and learn about the early foundation stages of this successful yet boot-strapped venture as well as how context informs trends in unique ways online. [expand title="Podcast Transcript"] Qasim Virj...

This time around we sit down with this unique consulting firm that helps organizations align user experience, content and technology across the core processes of knowledge management. Join  Yenza3 's Anuj Rastogi, Shveta Malhan and Martin Byrne join StartWell's founder Qasim Virjee in this fun conversation that explores some of their own career history that lead to forming this consultancy, why pe...

This live recording was made during the March instalment of AWENiteTO - a monthly event presented at main campus in downtown Toronto. The panel was moderated by Electric Runway 's Amanda Cosco and featured - Charles Bern (CEO Patio Interactive ), Fareena Contractor (Head of Walmart's Innovation Community ) & Matt McPherson (COO, Quantum Capture ) [expand title="Podcast Transcript"] Qasim Virje...

In this conversation we sit down with Scott Nihill, the co-founder of Embreate - an interdisciplinary agency focused on creating and producing original, interactive, story-based experiences that is resident at StartWell. *More info:  https://embreate.com/ [expand title="Podcast Transcript"] Qasim Virjee 0:20 All right back once again for this time, the 15th episode of the struggle Podcast. I'm Qas...

Our whole community at Main Campus has been in love with their personalized tea since we first partnered with teaBot to bring their machines to our cafe and bar.  Based at StartWell, teaBot is a startup that has been through acceleration programs including Y Combinator  and Creative Destruction Lab and weathered their first 5 years in existence to now have over 100 machines placed globally. In thi...

In this episode we sit down with Addo, one of the co-founders of Source - a new venture based at StartWell who are using Blockchain technologies for their interoperable data platform that lets developers create innovative ways to distribute access to information. One of the example use cases for their platform we discuss here briefly - being able to sync data between disparate MS Word files using...

In this episode, our CEO sits down with Marianne Bulger (People and Platform at Golden Ventures - a tech focused, industry-agnostic seed stage venture capital fund based in Toronto that invests across North America.) The conversation touches on our local VC landscape, the rapid growth we are experiencing in Toronto's tech sector, diversity and wait for it.... Burning Man! Links: Golden Ventures -...

This is episode StartWell's CEO and Founder Qasim Virjee sits down in our studio with Karim Harji - a leading researcher, educator and investor on the topic of Impact Measurement and Investing. Karim Harji brings over a decade of international experience in impact measurement and impact investing. He is a Senior Fellow with the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation ; Programme Director of the Oxford Im...

This time around, our Founder Qasim is joined in studio by Corey Caplan  the Senior Director for International Sales at StartWell Member company Gusto Worldwide Media . Headquartered in Ottawa, Gusto is the world’s leading producer of native 4k food and cooking content, available for television and digital platforms. Seen in more than 170 countries, its award winning series include One World Kitch...

In this episode Yuriy Blokhin breaks down how the Lightning Network represents the values for distributed networks that core blockchain hacker communities support around the world. Though an employee of Bitfury , one of the largest companies in the world focused on developing solutions for the Bitcoin Blockchain, Yuriy develops partnerships that benefit the adoption of Lightening as an open-access...