Tech & Science
When Brenda Irwin was invited by a friend to a Vancouver pitch event in the summer of 2013, she had no intention of investing in anything. The native of Mount Elgin, Ontario, had only left her job with Business Development...
1. You joined Fraser Health in 2010 and took over as CEO last October after serving as a medical health officer and then chief medical officer. What unique perspective do you bring? In my prior role, I always looked at my patients...
If its showing in a new ranking is any sign, people want to work for this B.C. business—and stay there. Vancouver-based Telus Corp. has made the top 25 in the Canadian edition of LinkedIn’s Top Companies 2019 list, placing 14th. Drawing on data from some...
Once again, the province’s innovation is showing. This year, three B.C. businesses were named finalists for Toronto-based PwC Canada’s V2R Awards. The competition—whose name is an acronym for Vision to Reality—chooses from applicants that have shown they can think outside the box by realizing their vision.
You know how it goes. Guy meets girl while studying abroad, falls in love, follows her back to her hometown of London, England, and…well, that’s where this takes a turn. Alex Dechant moved from Lethbridge, Alberta, to the U.K., and when he couldn’t get a job on a two-year visa, he started a company called Apple Tree that fixed iPhones and other Apple products.
A month and a half after enrolling at UBC on a football scholarship in 2008 with plans to go to law school, Charlie Grinnell injured his back in a car accident. The West Vancouver native dropped out of school and began making action sports videos that ended up online.
Everyone and their sister wants what Valerie Song is cooking, and she has no problem making them wait so the product is as good as it can be. Since Song drew up the designs for AVA (Automated Vertical Agriculture) Technologies’ flagship invention, the AVA Byte, in 2016, the attention has been non-stop.
Juan Orrego is a serial entrepreneur. Growing up in Barranquilla, Colombia, he sold ice cream door-to-door at the age of five. When he was 17, he moved to B.C. to get a BComm at UVic and started an online jewelry business, paying his youngest sister to make deliveries back in Colombia.
Health is a recurring theme in Stacey Wallin’s career. In 2012 she co-founded LifeBooster, a tech company that helps employers assess and address workplace injury risks. It evolved from SmartFit, an employee wellness solution that won Wallin’s team a prize at SFU’s Beedie School of Business, where she obtained a BBA with a concentration in innovation and entrepreneurship.
A childhood friend with a sleep disorder set Rachel Chase on the path to entrepreneurship. “He didn’t find out until he was 25 that he had obstructive sleep apnea,” says Chase, who grew up in South Surrey and earned a bachelor of business administration from SFU’s Beedie School of Business, concentrating in finance, management information systems, and innovation and entrepreneurship.