KINGSTON, ONTARIO (JUNE 4, 2020) – Queen’s Partnerships and Innovation (QPI) is pleased to welcome the spring 2021 cohort of companies to the Wings Accelerator program, which launched on May 17, 2021. The program provides early stage founders with tools and guidance to help them assess the feasibility of their business idea, validate their proposed value proposition, and begin the development of a viable business model.
Offered by Queen’s under the Scale-Up Platform, an initiative led by Invest Ottawa in Eastern Ontario and in which QPI is a regional partner, the Wings program is in its third iteration. The Scale-Up Platform is supported by the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario).
The first Wings session was delivered in-person at the Queen’s Startup Runway facilities located in the Seaway Coworking building in downtown Kingston, but with the pandemic in 2020, QPI and the program facilitators Elza Seregelyi and Andrew Jackson, quickly pivoted and created an online delivery method, which has continued for the third cohort.
In addition to participating with the cohort in the formal workshops, founders receive support via virtual 1:1 mentoring sessions with Elza and Andrew, a key aspect of the program which past participants have expressed was important to their progress.
Participants are already benefitting from what they learned in the first day of programming.
“After just one week, we are seeing a lot of engagement and enthusiasm from the cohort,” says Elza Seregelyi. “We are having productive follow-up conversations after the first workshop, and the participants are also creating conversations through the Slack channel. I’m so impressed with how they have jumped in and fully committed to their customer discovery activities. I think the next two months are going to be exciting!”
QPI selected the following companies to participate in the program, which will be delivered over the next two months and will conclude with a pitch day on July 26:
Alucia Lingerie – a company bringing universal design techniques to the lingerie industry by reimagining the bra to include bra-wearers traditionally excluded from the design process, such as those with unique physical abilities, skin tones, and bra sizes.
Arke News – a news aggregator platform that measures bias holistically by user, providing each user with an individual "bias score" and then recommending alternative sources/articles to push the user outside her/his bubble.
Green Top - the first battery collection container designed for the collection of household batteries in an outdoor environment.
London Street – creators of ZAKOapp, a secure tool for building and managing small teams using anonymous IDs.
myLaminin – a Blockchain-enabled document sharing service that finally delivers personal data privacy and control.
Ohanni.ai – an AI solution company developing both a product and solution is focused on efficiency in healthcare and operation rooms as well as developing warehouse supply chain solutions as well.
Politraq – a comprehensive government relations management platform designed for the needs of Canadian public affairs professionals.
Reel Alumni – a video storage and distribution platform for educational institutions to connect with their alumni, students, supporters and local communities while generating scholarship funds.
Stratotegic Inc. – a company providing and coordinating flight of high-altitude stratospheric balloon platform systems which can be used for multiple mission purposes including communication, astronomy, and near-space R&D testing. They are also developing artificial intelligence for the autonomous control of a network of high-altitude platform systems (HAPS).
Theia Markerless – a company developing hardware and software to track the movement of a human subject using an array of synchronized video cameras while ensuring biomechanical accuracy and relevance of the results.