Engine

Driving Innovation


McGill Engine logo

The McGill Engine Centre, out of the Faculty of Engineering, focuses on stimulating and supporting technologically-based innovation and entrepreneurship at McGill in collaboration with the McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship and the Office of Innovation and Partnerships.

Leveraging the Faculty of Engineering’s research and educational programs, the McGill Engine’s missions are:

  1. to help develop the next-generation of McGill technological innovators and entrepreneurs by providing education and advice, project funding, and business mentorship; and

  2. to promote and accelerate the commercialization of inventions and software out of the Faculty of Engineering through funding, coaching, and connections; and

  3. to increase engagement and R&D collaborations between innovation-driven companies and the Faculty of Engineering by providing matching and facilitation services

The vision for the McGill Engine is that it significantly contributes to the McGill, Montreal, and Quebec entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystems. Entrepreneurship requires a range of skills and attitudes, aspirations, activities, support, and networks. In the longer term, successful entrepreneurship positively feeds back into the ecosystem, as experienced entrepreneurs often become mentors, advisors, angel investors, venture capitalists, philanthropists, and public speakers that serve to support and inspire others. To help students succeed personally and professionally, we encourage and support the entrepreneurial and innovation mindsets that include initiative and self-direction, empathy, risk-taking, flexibility and adaptability, creativity and innovation, critical thinking, and problem solving.

Industrial R&D collaborations with universities are enhanced through facilitation between the parties and access to talent, expertise and in some cases specialized equipment as part of the technological innovation strategy. Companies that can harness outside ideas (deeper, broader, different perspectives) to advance their own businesses while leveraging their internal ideas outside their current operations will likely thrive in this new era of open innovation.

Visit the McGill Engine website.

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Contact

M.Eng, MBA, Associate Director of Engine Katya Marc
Katya Marc, M.Eng, MBA
Associate Director
Tel: 514-398-3355
katya.marc [at] mcgill.ca (Email)

Katya works closely with faculty members and students in advancing their technologically-based ideas and research, in teaching the entrepreneurial mindset, in the promotion of technologies and expertise of the Faculty to potential partners, and facilitates interaction between the various stakeholders in the projects to achieve successful connections, collaborations, and transfers of outstanding research from the labs to the marketplace. She helped co-found the McGill Engine and its programs. She has been working at McGill for over 22 years, servicing mainly the Faculty of Engineering for their research/service contract and intellectual property commercialization needs, and for helping build the entrepreneurial mindset and skills of its members. Prior to joining McGill, Katya was an industrial technology advisor with the National Research Council of Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC’s IRAP), and before that worked for Eastman Chemical Company in Canada, USA, and Malaysia for over six years in multiple areas: technical sales, process and development control, production, and technical service.

A three-time McGill graduate, Katya earned her B.Eng. and M.Eng. degrees in Chemical Engineering, and her MBA from McGill.

 

   

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