Ryerson University’s startup incubator DMZ has launched an advisory council to support the Canadian startup and entrepreneurial ecosystem.

The 18-person council was handpicked from over 500 applicants and includes: Kirstine Stewart, former Head of Media at Twitter Canada, Yung Wu, Managing Director of NFQ Ventures, and Dino Trevisani, President, IBM Canada

The goal of the council is to “increase visibility for Canadian entrepreneurs, and to develop new approaches to fuel the success of Canadian innovators,” according to a DMZ press release about the initiative.

“The DMZ’s advisory council will play an important role in finding strategic and innovative approaches that will strengthen the DMZ’s position as a hub in the innovation economy,” says Mohamed Lachemi, president and vice-chancellor at Ryerson University.

“The council will also better forecast the needs of the startup community and find solutions that will be supported by some of the leading minds in business and technology,” he says.  

The first order of business for the advisory council is to create a bootcamp-style program to help new startup owners learn hard and soft skills needed to accelerate their success or failure in the first six months.

Beyond that, the advisory council will develop a collaboration agenda for Canada’s startups to bring together technology hubs nationwide and align with Canada’s innovation agenda.  

The Advisory Council members are:

• Nadir Mohamed, (DMZ Advisory Council Chairman), Chairman, ScaleUP Ventures
• John Albright, Managing Partner, Relay Ventures
• Peter Bowie, Independent Director, former CEO of Deloitte China
• Barry K. Columb, President & CEO, President’s Choice Financial
• Bruce Croxon, Partner, Round 13 Capital
• Maggie Fox, former Global Senior Vice President, Digital, SAP
• Sabrina Geremia, Managing Director, Integrated Solutions Google
• Nazmin Gupta, Chief Marketing Officer, Greystone Managed Investments Inc.
• Anthony Lacavera, Founder and Chairman, Globalive Capital
• Andrew Macdonald, Regional General Manager, APAC and Latin America, Uber
• Kevin O’Brien, Chief Client Officer, Aeroplan at Aimia
• Priya Patil, Corporate Director
• Anoop Prakash, Managing Director, Harley-Davidson Canada
• Michael Rossi, President, adidas Group Canada
• Kirstine Stewart, Chief Strategy Officer, Diply GoViral
• Dino Trevisani, President, IBM Canada
• Yung Wu, Managing Director, NFQ Ventures
• David Walmsley, Editor in Chief, The Globe and Mail
• Mohamed Lachemi, President and Vice-Chancellor, Ryerson University
• Abdullah Snobar, Executive Director, DMZ at Ryerson University

For more information about Ryerson DMZ and the advisory council, click here.