News

Jane Ong, co-founder of Neophyto Foods, won the $25,000 grand prize at the 2020 Rhyze and Shine! Pitch Competition on October 21, 2020. The event was the culmination of the first cohort of the Rhyze Ventures program that helped female entrepreneurs to optimize their business and leadership skills through classes, business projects, mentorship, and pitch training. Nine entrepreneurs in the Rhyze cohort, including Ms.

In this blog series, we introduce you to our team members and the work they do to help University of Guelph researchers to maximize the real-world impact of their work.  

Introducing Emily Gordon, Mitacs Business Development Specialist – University of Guelph.

Q: First of all, Emily, welcome back to the University of Guelph. As a two-time U of G grad you already have deep connections within the community; what are you most looking forward to about reconnecting?  

Neophyto Foods wins $25,000 at Rhyze Ventures Pitch Awards. Neophyto Foods is a past Project SOY winner, an Accelerator Guelph client team and won the 2020 Gryphon's LAAIR Pitch Competition People's Choice Award.

Read the full article.

On September 16^th,  the third Accelerator Guelph cohort of academic entrepreneurs started an optimized incubation program that will commercialize research despite the physical distancing constraints of COVID19.

In 2017, the University of Guelph made a commitment to support academic entrepreneurship and formed a New Venture Creation team. Housed within the Research Innovation Office, these specialists support researchers who see commercial potential in their research. Offering incubation, mentorship and market research support, this group has helped researcher led teams to validate the market viability of their inventions and to create start-up companies to take innovative research-based products and services to market.

A lot of time and effort has gone into your research, but estimates suggest that only half of academic papers will only be read by yourself and your editors. Not the reach you were hoping to have? Wanting to see your research used to make a difference in the world? You need a knowledge mobilization (KMb) plan.

Sure, great, so…. what exactly is knowledge mobilization?

Have your say! The Research Innovation Office’s New Venture Creation team needs faculty insights to help us create the services and programs U of G researchers need to have more impact!  

Created by a team of scientists at the Universtiy of Guelph, Precision Biomonitoring offers point-of-need DNA tools and services. 

The July 9, 2020 article published by The Toronto Star highlights Precision Biomonitoring's recent approval by Health Canada to sell a mobile Covid-19 test kit (made by U.S. manufacturer Biomeme).

Governments and companies need timely, credible information that can help them make good decisions - this is especially important right now, when we are facing unprecedented challenges to our food systems due to COVID-19.

Working with start-ups and academic entrepreneurs is a part of the day-to-day work that our New Venture Creation team performs. Their focus is on helping bring products and services based in UofG research to market through programming and mentorship support. While doing this work, they field a lot of questions from business founders who need resources that are readily available in the larger Guelph innovation and start-up ecosystem.