Established under the McGill Innovation Collective, the McGill-Notman partnership offers short-term residencies to startup cofounders affiliated with McGill either as students, alumni, or as staff or researchers.

During their residency, companies have access to resources such as office space, mentoring sessions and workshops dedicated to start-ups. To-date, Notman House has welcomed more than twenty startup companies, many of which have also benfitted from the McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship.

For week 3 of the McGill X-1 Accelerator, the theme was Business Models and Startup Financials. Podlegal’s Philippe-Olivier Daniel got the ball rolling by telling participants to go for a distinctive company name that’s easy to defend, and by suggesting the book Venture Deals — Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist.

Kristina Tomaz-Young knows a thing or two about startups. She’s been involved with several projects since 2007, both as an adviser and as founder of her own companies, including Venture Cap TV and Skill2Go. She sat with The Dobson Chronicles to discuss her development as a businessperson, how to garner success at home and beyond, and judging the McGill Dobson Cup. Of the Montreal startup culture, Ms. Tomaz-Young is bullish, pointing to universities like McGill, the city’s venture capital firms, and incubators as proof of a vibrant scene. As for the Dobson Cup, Ms.

Next winter, Whistler Blackcomb and Canadian Wilderness Adventures will become some of the first companies to offer electric snowmobiles to clients. The machines are made by Quebec-based Taiga Motors, which built on its first-place finish in the 2016 McGill Dobson Cup’s Innovation Track to expand its technology and develop a revolutionary all-electric snowmobile from the ground up.

Startup Saccade Analytics was the first place winner of the 2017 McGill Dobson Cup Health Sciences Track. The team’s pitch involved analyzing eye and head movement to help diagnose neural diseases. The team sat down with the Dobson Chronicles to talk about what made them dive into the entrepreneurial life, and eye-head movement as an indicator of disease — including, but not limited to, concussion. The team’s work builds on a foundation laid by team member Professor Mimi Galiana, who is a pioneer in the field.

As judge for the Social Enterprise category at the semi-finals of this year’s McGill Dobson Cup, Jake Wildman-Sisk’s credentials are solid: Not only did he help develop the first social systems innovation lab in New Brunswick, but he has also worked for the Fredericton Food Bank, and is currently an innovation fellow at the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation’s RECODE initiative, which supports students’ efforts to become agents of progress.

Business partners Audrey Bolduc and Mitalie Makhani won the 2015 Dobson Cup with their pitch to make fertilizer from used coffee grounds. Now CEO of GroundIt, Ms. Bolduc returns to judge the 2017 Dobson Cup. She sat down with The Dobson Chronicles to talk about her company’s all-natural fertilizer, her incredible experience as a Dobson Cup contestant, how her time at Desautels has moulded who she is as an entrepreneur, and just what possessed her to found a startup while she was still in school.