Ryerson DMZ Launches Advisory Council for Startups

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.

What the DMZ Is

The DMZ was founded in 2010 at what was then Ryerson University in downtown Toronto. It started with a handful of student-led startups and grew into one of Canada’s best-known university incubators, offering founders workspace, programming, mentors and introductions to investors and customers.

A university incubator sits somewhere between a classroom and a venture fund. It doesn’t usually write large cheques, but it gives early-stage founders structure and a network at the point where most startups fail. That’s the gap the advisory council was meant to help with.

“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.

A Bootcamp for the First Six Months

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.

The phrase “success or failure” is worth noticing. A good early program doesn’t only help companies grow. It also helps founders find out quickly whether an idea works, so they don’t spend years on one that doesn’t. In startup terms, hard skills usually means things like finance, sales and product development, while soft skills covers leadership, hiring and pitching.

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.

Who Sits on the Council

The council mixes investors, corporate executives and media. Bruce Croxon, for example, co-founded the dating site Lavalife, appeared on CBC’s Dragons’ Den from 2011 to 2013 and co-founded Round 13 Capital in 2012. Anthony Lacavera founded Globalive and the carrier Wind Mobile, which was sold to Shaw Communications in 2016 for $1.6 billion.

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

What Happened Next

The DMZ kept growing after 2016. By its own account, it was recognized as the top university-based incubator in the world between 2015 and 2018, expanded internationally and launched Canada’s first Black Innovation Programs. Between 2019 and 2023 it expanded across more than 15 countries, and it says it has now supported more than 2,600 founders. The university has also started investing directly, through a for-profit arm called DMZ Ventures, with returns going back to the university.

The university itself changed its name. Facing criticism over Egerton Ryerson’s role in the creation of Canada’s residential school system, it announced in April 2022 that it would become Toronto Metropolitan University. Mohamed Lachemi stayed on as president through the change.

What It Means for Founders

Advisory councils like this one are only as useful as the access they create. For a first-time founder, the value of an incubator is often less about desks and more about who will take a call: an investor, a big-company buyer or someone who has built and sold a company before. If you’re choosing a program, look at what its mentors and advisers have actually done, and ask current founders how often they get real time with them.