Matthew Stiver is a University of Guelph Alum who graduated from the Mechanical Engineering Program. Matthew has a keen eye for detail, he loves understanding how things work and is passionate about doing research.

Matthew has leveraged these skills to become the founder of his own company – Lifestyle Lab, a research and content creation brand whose main goal is to combine very high production quality, with reviews that aim to give complete and unbiased opinions on the products people are researching most.

Housed within the John F. Wood Centre for Business & Student Enterprise (Wood Centre), The Hub is a new-venture business incubator designed to support early-stage business ideas with high-potential, but unproven business models. The goal of The Hub is to provide University of Guelph students (undergraduate and graduate) and alumni the opportunity to build a successful business enterprise in a supportive learning environment.

The Proteus Innovation Competition is an intense four-month competition that challenges teams to create a viable commercialization strategy for a promising technology. The competition is broken down into numerous rounds and U of G Master of Biotechnology students Kathy Ha, Riya Misra, Vedha Patel and Kristian Hau have successfully made it to the final round of the competition for their work on FloStim Technologies.

Boris Skurikhin, Mahdi Aleali, and Poorya Gohargani are all co-founders of Klassroom.io. Klassroom.io is a fully managed cloud platform for online and hybrid learning that allows anyone to build their very own online school. They offer fast onboarding, low pricing and push out continuous innovative features. Klassroom.io curates their platform for the needs of high school students, educators, and administrators. 

 We sat down with the team to get the inside scoop on how they started Klassroom.io and what they hope to get out of the Hub Incubator Program!

University of Guelph undergraduate students James Romain and Graham Anderson are co-founders of their own company, Outfitted. Outfitted is a service that offers a completely customizable and catered clothing experience. Their end goal is to develop an app that utilizes Artifical Intelligence (AI) to create a style profile to provide you with clothing pieces that match your interests. 

We sat down with James and Graham to get the inside scoop on how they started Outfitted and what they hope to get out of the Hub Incubator Program!

Katie A.B Arts is a business created by Guelph artist Katie. Katie offers gorgeous hand painted prints, plant pots, stickers, and more. All of Katie's nature inspired art is available for purchase on her Etsy shop! Katie is an inspiring entrepreneur who we wanted to learn from. 

Alexandre Borowcyk and Farhad Rahbarnia are co-founders of Notos Technologies, a drone software company using the power of wind energy to enable long-term flight. Notos Technologies uses AI to unlock the true potential of UAVs, allowing their partners to perform longer, more reliable, and greener missions. Alexandre and Farhad aspire to provide the world with access to continuous and unlimited aerial data. 

We sat down with the team to get the inside scoop on how they started Notos Technologies and what they hope to get out of the Hub Incubator Program!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

The winter holidays are a long way away, but for me that’s not the most wonderful time of the year. I am referring to the Enactus Regional Competition! Every year in March, Enactus hosts a regional pitch competition where Enactus clubs from across the province come out and pitch their business ideas for a chance to win money to help make those ideas a reality! This year might look a little different, but the excitement, competitive energy and the drive to win are all still there!

Retea was founded by Toby Zhou during her second year of university, when she made it her goal to reduce her single-use plastics consumption. After not finding many sustainable alternatives to drinking bubble tea, Toby realized that there was a gap in the market. This is when she made a DIY version of a reusable bubble tea cup - aka the first Retea cup! Retea is a student-run business with a mission to provide sustainable ways of making and drinking bubble tea.  

The Copper Bell is a small candle business based in Downtown Guelph, created by Katrina Bell. After having her daughter Katrina developed a sensitivity to scented candles. Determined to find a solution that would allow herself and others with a scent sensitivity to have candles in their home, she started creating her own candles. All of Katrina's candles are made with natural soy wax, high quality fragrance oils, cotton wicks and a fun personality. Katrina's hand-poured soy candles come in a variety of scents, each with their own funny and unique name!