Introducing: The NEXT decade of entrepreneurs - Quarterly Publication - Ed. 01 - Flipbook - Page 7
Introducing: The NEXT decade of entrepreneurs
VIVEK VYAS AND HASSAN MURAD HOPE
TO CREATE A ZERO-WASTE WORLD
Next AI
In creating our Next AI program, we hoped to incubate some BIG
solutions to BIG problems. Vivek and Hassan’s venture, Intuitive AI, made our dreams
come true by creating Oscar. Oscar was given life from a vision of a zero waste world. It
eliminates contamination by identifying the object in your hand at the point of disposal
and visually educates you on how to sort your trash, empowering us to sort out a more
sustainable future. They currently have a pilot live in Vancouver airport and Simon Fraser University. What we’re hoping they bring into the next decade? More trash talk.
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Next Founders
Tyler and Co-founder Braden Handley’s
venture, Inkbox, creates unique temporary
tattoos that last 1–2 weeks, revolutionizing
the tattoo industry and by association, self
expression. As published by Vice, “Inkbox
is perfect for the person who wants to
express themselves but doesn’t know WTF
they want.” To date, they have raised $14.1M
in funding, applied over one million tattoos
worldwide and have had their products
appear on TV shows like Stranger Things,
Russian Doll and more. Their tagline may be
“for now,” but we forecast them innovating
self expression “for decades.”
NUHA SIDDIQUI
WORKS TO ELIMINATE
HARMFUL PLASTICS
MARYAM NABAVI TRANSLATES
INFANT BABBLING INTO A
SOLUTION FOR DEVELOPMENT
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Over the past 50 years, world plastic production
has doubled. Nuha’s venture Ecopackers provides
a solution to make that plastic production and
output less harmful. They use the power of plants
to help existing plastic manufacturers create single
use plastics in a 100% eco-friendly and non-toxic
way. Since launching in 2018, they have filed international patents, global pilots and raised $4.3M
in funding. Nuha was recently featured on BNN
Bloomberg discussing their advantage in cost,
compatibility and compostability. They’re currently hiring in preparation for 2020, when they will
announce who their partner companies are. We’re
excited to learn who will be joining forces with
Nuha to drive real environmental change over the
next decade.
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TYLER HANDLEY
REVOLUTIONIZES
SELF EXPRESSION
Next AI
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To you it’s babbling, to Maryam it’s an opportunity
and a solution. Less than one month post launch,
Maryam and Co-founder Shane Saunderson’s
venture Babbly, an AI-powered app designed to
track the speech development of babies has had
tremendous success. She has garnered various
awards including Elevate’s pitch competition and
our own People’s Choice Award at Venture Day,
upwards of 300 customers, and a partnership with
SickKids. Her biggest success? Finding a solution that accelerates the speech development in
infants, increasing their chance at academic and
social success and possibly changing the trajectory of their lives entirely. Thank you, Maryam, for
giving a voice to the entrepreneurs of our future.
So, what
does the
#NEXTdecade
look like?
2020
With the momentum from the last ten years,
we are setting our sights on the next ten.
Armed with the continued power of our
network and supporters, we are poised to
launch 700 entrepreneurs, 500 ventures,
more than triple our economic impact and
expand our network tenfold. We couldn’t
have asked for a better decade of humans
to craft our collective story and are beyond
excited to continue support their growth in
any way we can.
Let’s continue the momentum and spark a
new decade of support by sharing our stories with each other. What do you plan to
impact, disrupt or achieve in the #NEXTdecade?
Submit your story to grit@nextcanada.com
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