D’Souza’s fellowship is one of 10 Ontario post-graduate fellowships to help entrepreneurs turn their neuro-discoveries into companies and jobs. D’Souza is a 2012 graduate of Carleton’s Technology Innovation Management (TIM) program.

“Natasha joined the TIM program with a purpose – to launch and grow her company,” said Steven Muegge, her graduate project supervisor and a professor with the Sprott School of Business. “She graduated with an engineering degree in one hand and a new technology business in the other.  Her graduate project examined business models to provide technology and services for children with special needs, and her company is the commercialization of that work.”

D’Souza has more than 15 years of industry experience and advises businesses, organizations and individuals on the optimization of their business strategies. She is the founder and CEO of Virtual EyeSee.

She is in the last stages of developing an innovative therapy app for children with special needs called Zeely Adventures. Children are motivated by the engaging game-based approach to recognize and interpret facial expressions.

The TIM program is a unique master’s program for innovative engineers that focuses on creating wealth at the early stages of company or opportunity life cycles.

Best of TIM Review for Technology Entrepreneurs (ISBN: 978-0-7709-0559-0) is available for $9.99. All net proceeds go to pay for the operating costs of the TIM Review,
which provides insightful content about the issues and emerging trends relevant to launching and growing technology businesses. The refereed journal focuses on the theories, strategies, and tools that help small and large technology companies succeed.

Associate professor Tony Bailetti will receive the International Talent Acquisition Centre (In-TAC) Award in the group category as the head of Lead to Win (LTW). LTW has partnered with In-TAC to connect innovative companies in LTW with talented international professionals.

“Tony has taken Carleton’s innovative entrepreneurship and technology programs to the marketplace, and he continues to support our students by connecting them with professionals, bringing new business to Ottawa and to Canada,” said Roseann O’Reilly Runte, Carleton’s president. “LTW, Tony and his colleagues in Carleton’s Technology Innovation Management program richly deserve this award recognizing their commitment to the success of local organizations.”

The In-TAC Award recognizes outstanding achievement by one of its employer partners that hires the largest number of In-TAC newcomers in the past year. It is because of the efforts of individuals such as Bailetti that In-TAC has been successful in making a positive contribution to the employment rates and successful integration of its professional IT and accounting graduates.

“Entrepreneurs in the region, including our students, are taking advantage of the opportunities afforded to them by the Lead to Win ecosystem and In-TAC program,” said Bailetti. “Graduates of the Lead to Win Bootcamp have gone on to form successful companies that hire talented people in the nation’s capital and drive the local economy. These innovative companies are better prepared to compete globally due to the professionals they have found through In-TAC.”

Faculty members in Carleton’s Technology Innovation Management program and other individuals in Ottawa and Gatineau operate Lead to Win, an ecosystem designed to launch and grow successful companies in the region. LTW is an economic engine that embodies applied research carried out at the university for the purpose of creating knowledge jobs by supporting innovative entrepreneurs.

Bailetti is an award-winning mentor and the director of Carleton’s Institute for Technology Entrepreneurship and Commercialization.

About Lead to Win
Lead To Win is an award-winning business development program that seeks to establish and grow businesses in Canada’s National Capital Region. Initially, the Lead To Win (LTW) program was founded to develop technology-based companies, but over time the program has grown to also encompass all growth-oriented businesses. The goal has remained the same: each business is to generate a minimum of six jobs in its first three years.

“TIM provided us with the business knowledge that we as engineers need in order to create and grow early stage technology companies,” says Majic. “The program also provided connections, mentors and helped get early customers for my startup.”

He adds: “Being in Canada, it is a heck of a lot more difficult than being an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley in the United States. The TIM program really helps level the playing field.”

Majic’s company Ottercall.com is developing mobile language learning software and has already created some beta apps. “They are simple apps but they allowed me to validate my market and figure out what people want,” says Majic. “The next version is going to be awesome.”

Majic says the language software assesses and scores your pronunciation. The demo on the company website is an early version of the software that gives feedback on single words. Majic is now working on a version that has full sentences. “You really have a conversation with the app instead of just saying a word and it will give much more succinct feedback,” he explains.

The idea is that the user picks a theme which then shows related words and pictures. Users then listen to the pronunciation and tape themselves speaking the word. The speech recognition software then evaluates their pronunciation.

Majic says the TIM program also helped him to communicate more effectively about the value of his business proposition. “Pre-TIM I would say the value of our new mobile learning software is to improve language skills. Post-TIM I would say the value lies in helping people get jobs, travel, integrate into a new society.”

Majic recently participanted in the Carleton Entrepreneurs program. More details about that initiative are available at: http://ventures.carleton.ca/.

This kind of communication skillset is just one of the many ways the TIM program helps budding entrepreneurs get ahead of the competition.

Now he has graduated, Majic says that he will be focussing on his company full-time. But this time, with the knowledge that he has gleaned from the TIM program, he is feeling confident about pursuing his business goals and products.

The Technology Innovation Management (TIM) program, a master’s program offered by the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering, creates the environment for success for aspiring entrepreneurs, engineers seeking more senior leadership roles, and engineers building credentials and expertise for their next career move.

Add in Ottawa’s Young Entrepreneurs (OYE) program, a partnership between Carleton University, Algonquin College, La Cité collégiale and the University of Ottawa to support students and recent grads as they launch and grow companies, and the chance for success is multiplied.

For two graduate students who have launched businesses in the TIM program, OYE is providing essential funding, mentorship, and office space to help them succeed.

Connecting physical and virtual worlds

Michael Ayukawa enrolled in TIM after coming to a harsh realization about his recently founded company, Cornerportal. “We faced the cold reality shared by many of our fellow entrepreneurs starting up in a downturn: we would starve before this would turn into anything meaningful,” he says.

“Attracted to the TIM program for highly pragmatic reasons, I was soon introduced to, and became totally absorbed in, the theories of technology management, business ecosystems, and multi-sided platforms,” says Ayukawa. The result was a change in his mental model and a new direction for his company.

Ayukawa and his colleagues developed Scanzai, the first physical object-centric social network application. Using Scanzai tags or other Quick Response (QR) codes, Cornerportal users can create context-sensitive discussions around products, places and things by linking objects in the physical world to cloud-based services.

“We make it easy and productive for people who might not otherwise connect to share their perspectives about something they care about—all from their mobile device,” says Ayukawa.

Ayukawa pitched Cornerportal to the OYE program in a Dragon’s-Den-style presentation and received top marks and funding from the panel in September 2011.

“We will use the OYE support to fund three Carleton students to help with development work,” says Ayukawa, “It will also help us step outside the university environment and make stronger business connections.”

Helping cities give people a voice

Cities face tough decisions when trying to encourage economic development, whether it’s deciding how best to develop an old stadium site or weighing strategies to encourage new businesses on a declining main street. To make matters worse, decision-makers often hear too much from special interest groups and not enough from individual citizens, according to Robert Poole, an entrepreneur and TIM student.

Poole’s company, Freebird Connect, has developed an innovative online tool designed to help municipalities cut through conflicting data and give a voice to ordinary citizens. It brings together the data and documents about a particular issue and allows people to share their interpretations and opinions in a social networking environment.

While he’s no stranger to entrepreneurship—this is Poole’s fourth company—he enrolled in TIM to give him and his business a distinct advantage.

“Through the TIM program, we gain a comprehensive understanding of new business models and strategies for creating successful technology businesses, quickly and with little money,” says Poole, “Because of the program’s strong links to the business community, it gives our company a much better chance of success.”

As a Carleton student, Poole was eligible to pitch his opportunity to OYE. Like Ayukawa, he obtained top marks and OYE support.

“The money helps—there’s no question—but it’s also the rigorous process and the mentorship that comes with it that gives us a real advantage,” says Poole.

Freebird Connect has already landed its first customer, the City of Ottawa, and discussions are underway with other municipalities across Ontario.

(With files from Chris McPhee.)