Kevin Mclaughlin founded AutoShare, Toronto’s first car-sharing company, to reduce the enormous environmental damage caused by vehicle emissions. His company has since saved Torontonians both time and money in vehicle insurance and maintenance, providing well-needed financial relief during the 2008 recession. Now, after successfully overcoming numerous challenges in securing capital and business ownership, AutoShare has achieved over $6 million in annual revenue and a network of over 12 000 auto-sharing members. AutoShare was sold to Enterprise in 2014.

Kevin has integrated the values of environmental-consciousness in both his business and his personal life. He has also founded other companies in the shared-mobility and urban transformation space, including Modo.coop and Evergreen.ca. Currently, Kevin is president of Nesko Technologies, a mobile taxi payment, hailing, and demand prediction platform.

Joshua is the President and CEO of Opus One Solutions, a software engineering and solutions company empowering the electricity grid to transform into a platform model for the decentralized energy economy.

Prior to Opus One, Joshua was the Director of Engineering at eCAMION Inc., a grid-scale energy storage provider. Moreover, Joshua was head of smart grid at Toronto Hydro-Electric System Limited, where he led the policy, strategy, regulatory, business, and engineering development of Toronto’s smart grid infrastructure, including Toronto’s 25-year smart grid roadmap.

Joshua is a licensed Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario. He holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Toronto, Masters of Electric Power Engineering from the University of Waterloo, and completed executive programs from MIT Sloan, IMD Business School, and Harvard Business School.

Marissa Wu is the founder and CEO of Rhythm Consulting and formerly the founder of Onyx Motion and Director of Client Strategy at Ten Thousand Coffees.

Rhythm Consulting is a Toronto-based company that offers marketing and product management consulting for small businesses and tech startups who want to be recognized in the global market. Prior to her entrepreneurial ventures, Marissa was a Marketing Proctoid at Proctor and Gamble. Since leaving full-time employment, Marissa has founded two of her own companies: Onyx Motion and Rhythm Consulting.

As the CEO and Co-founder of Onyx Motion, a digital coaching application for smart-watches, Marissa was able to help athletes improve their skills on the court. In fact, Onyx Motion has even been used by members of the National Basketball Association like Ben Gordon of the Texas Legends and Bill Burgos, an Orlando Magic Coach. In her years as an entrepreneur, she was featured in the likes of the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and CBC’s Dragon’s Den.

Mike Silagadze is the Co-founder and CEO of Top Hat, an education software company based in Toronto. Top Hat is changing the way classroom instruction is done on a mass scale. The tools Top Hat offers allows for the fostering of a positive learning environment for students and effective teaching for instructors at an affordable price. 

Mike founded Top Hat in 2009 with Mohsen Shahini who is now the Chief Academic Officer for the company. Noticing that the graduation rate for university students in North America is below fifty percent, Mike and Mohsen realized that there was a problem of student engagement in the classroom. Through Top Hat, Mike and his team have aimed to better the relationships between students and their instructors and make the university experience a positive one for all. Since its inception in 2009,the company has raised close to 50 million dollars in revenue.Top Hat has been praised by Maclean’s Magazine as ‘A Narwhal’, one of the four Canadian companies to watch that could pass a billion dollar valuation this year!

Prior to Top Hat, Mike was an early employee at Miovision Technologies in Waterloo. Mike is a graduate of the University of Waterloo in Electrical Engineering. Through his expertise, Mike has helped Top Hat become a giant in student engagement software. As an established leader in his field, entrepreneur, and lecturer, Mike has a lot of insight in running a business.

David was the founder and CEO of Digital Cement, a digital services firm at the intersection of marketing technology, customer experience design and data analytics.   Digital Cement’s innovative marketing programs delivered topline revenue for international clients like Kraft Foods, FedEx, and Dell. Pitney Bowes acquired Digital Cement in 2007. David is also the author of a best selling book about entrepreneurship (The Idea Guide). David now runs his own investment firm Innovation Grade Ventures, focusing on new and disruptive technology ventures in both private and social ventures. David has also received the Top 40 under 40 award, given annually to individuals from multiple disciplines that demonstrate vision, leadership, innovation, achievement, and community impact. He was also named one of the Top 100 alumni in the history of Wilfrid Laurier University.  David serves on company boards in Canada and the US, and is an accredited board director via the Institute of Corporate Directors.  (LinkedIn profile)

Steve founded Shoebox in 2012 and has grown it to millions of users. In this talk he’ll discuss various lessons learned about growing an early stage startup spanning technology, marketing, culture and more.

Steve is the co-founder and CEO of Shoebox. Shoebox is a consumer cloud service used by millions of users to help people relive their best moments everyday. Prior to Shoebox, Steve worked in computer vision and augmented reality at Microsoft.