Media Releases

DemoCampToronto 2015: A showcase of Ontario’s most promising inventors and technology startups

April 23, 2015

TORONTO, ON – Ontario’s most promis­ing investors and tech­nol­o­gy star­tups will gath­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toronto’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment on May 12 for Demo­Camp­Toron­to 2015.

“There are few events in the province that allow you to pitch and demo before 450 peo­ple of con­se­quence,” says start­up founder, Khan­jan Desai, of his expe­ri­ence with Demo­Camp­Toron­to, Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab’s year­ly event that brings togeth­er founders, researchers, aca­d­e­mics, VCs, and thought lead­ers in research com­mer­cial­iza­tion. “I was impressed by the qual­i­ty of the feed­back from the audi­ence, both dur­ing our on-stage demo and chat­ting with vis­i­tors to our booth: pro­fes­sors, investors, inven­tors, eager MBAs. The qual­i­ty of the oth­er pitch­es was also very high. It was an extreme­ly well-run event that put founders front and cen­tre.”

Desai is co-founder of Nev­er­frost, a Y Com­bi­na­tor-backed nan­otech­nol­o­gy start­up that’s about to grad­u­ate from the Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab’s third cohort of ven­tures. Desai and his part­ner, Chong Shen, have devel­oped a prod­uct that will delight frus­trat­ed dri­vers in cold cli­mates: a film that changes the fun­da­men­tal prop­er­ties of wind­shields, ren­der­ing them resis­tant to both chip­ping and frost for­ma­tion.

Desai has come full cir­cle. He pitched at last year’s event, which gave him a “taste of what the Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab would be like: the high stan­dards, the demand­ing process, the results focus.” That moti­vat­ed him to apply for the Lab’s eight-month-long, mile­stones-based accel­er­a­tor pro­gram, which helps tech­nol­o­gy star­tups scale their busi­ness­es. There, he received crit­i­cal strate­gic advice, men­tor­ship, and ear­ly invest­ment from some of the coun­try’s top tech­nol­o­gy entre­pre­neurs (brand­ed the G7 Fel­lows), includ­ing Dan Debow, Rot­man JD/MBA’00, founder of Ryp­ple and one of Toron­to’s lead­ing angel investors.

At this year’s Demo­Camp­Toron­to, Debow and Desai will par­tic­i­pate in a pan­el on the chal­lenges and rewards of tech­nol­o­gy and entre­pre­neur­ship in Cana­da. Also tak­ing part is the ‘Father of Wear­ables’, Steve Mann, pro­lif­ic inven­tor (HDR pro­cess­ing, META AR glass­es, and Muse), pro­fes­sor of Elec­tri­cal and Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, and the Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab’s Chief Sci­en­tist. The Lab will also host a class of mid­dle school­ers at the event, hop­ing that the demos and speak­ers ignite their pas­sion for sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy.

Desai likes that the orga­niz­ers seek to high­light not only the accom­plish­ments of the Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab’s star­tups, but of the region’s most promis­ing ven­tures, incu­ba­tors, and accel­er­a­tors. The goal is to con­tin­ue build­ing a com­mu­ni­ty of founders, investors, and dif­fer­ence-mak­ers and to show­case the bril­liant young tal­ent clus­tered along the Water­loo-Toron­to cor­ri­dor and beyond.

Demo­Camp­Toron­to 2015 will take place in Desau­tels Hall at UofT’s Rot­man School of Man­age­ment from 2:00 to 5:00 pm. Reg­is­tra­tion is avail­able online. Hear inter­est­ing speak­ers, expe­ri­ence cut­ting-edge demos by those shap­ing the future of tech, and learn more about the region’s dynam­ic start­up ecosys­tem, includ­ing the Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab.

About the Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab

Found­ed by Pro­fes­sor Ajay Agraw­al, the Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab is a pro­gram based at Rot­man School of Man­age­ment, Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to. The Lab lever­ages the University’s lead­ing fac­ul­ty and indus­try net­work as well as its loca­tion in the heart of Canada’s busi­ness cap­i­tal to accel­er­ate mas­sive­ly scal­able, tech­nol­o­gy-based ven­tures that have the poten­tial to trans­form our social, indus­tri­al, and eco­nom­ic land­scape. The Lab has helped many nascent star­tups, includ­ing Atom­wise, Bridg­It, Min­u­um, Nymi, NVBots, OTI Lumion­ics, Push, Thalmic Labs, Per­cep­tiv Labs, Nev­er­frost, Chargespot, and Vote­Com­pass, among oth­ers.

The Lab pro­vides a unique style of mile­stone-based coach­ing with the goal of max­i­miz­ing equi­ty-val­ue cre­ation. Its men­tors — the G7 Fel­lows — are some of Canada’s most suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neurs, with years of expe­ri­ence in build­ing and scal­ing tech­nol­o­gy-based com­pa­nies. The cur­rent group of G7 Fel­lows includes the founders of Blue­Cat Net­works, D‑Wave Sys­tems, GoIn­stant, Kik, Kobo, Ryp­ple, Syso­mos, Tra­der­Me­dia, WIND Mobile, and Work­Brain.

To learn more about the Cre­ative Destruc­tion Lab, vis­it www.creativedestructionlab.com.

The Rot­man School of Man­age­ment is locat­ed in the heart of Canada’s com­mer­cial and cul­tur­al cap­i­tal and is part of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, one of the world’s top 20 research uni­ver­si­ties. The Rot­man School fos­ters a new to think that enables our grad­u­ates to tack­le today’s glob­al busi­ness chal­lenges. For more infor­ma­tion, vis­it www.rotman.utoronto.ca.

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For more infor­ma­tion:

Ken McGuf­fin
Man­ag­er, Media Rela­tions
Rot­man School of Man­age­ment
Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
Voice 416.946.3818
E‑mail mcguffin@rotman.utoronto.ca
Fol­low Rot­man on Twit­ter @rotmanschool
Watch Rot­man on You Tube www.youtube.com/rotmanschool