Toronto Startup Weekend logo courtesy Startup Weekend

OCAD U’s Imagination Catalyst, the centre for entrepreneurs on campus, in association with the Digital Media Research and Innovation Institute, coordinated and hosted a flagship Maker Edition of Startup Weekend Toronto. The event, which gives design teams 48 hours to build rapid prototypes and launch ideas, ran from Nov. 22 to 24. It was in good company among 150 such events taking place in locations around the world during Global Entrepreneurship Week.

“OCAD U is extremely pleased to be hosting Startup Weekend Maker Edition,” said Petra Kassun-Mutch, Executive Director, Imagination Catalyst. “As Canada’s largest art and design university we know and appreciate the importance of makers in our economy. We also recognize that entrepreneurship is an essential life skill these days.”

Although Startup Weekend events are usually focused on web or mobile business models, Maker Edition emphasizes design and concepts targeting what Kassun-Mutch describes as the important “internet of things” such as wearable computing (think Google Glass, fabric embedded sensors, body-monitoring devices), 3D printing (such as maker bots) and industrial design.

The Startup Weekend Toronto team of organizers and volunteers started planning the event three months ago and is expecting 120 participants to take part, along with mentors judges and some high profile sponsors. The weekend provides a compressed time frame for entrepreneurs to not only meet one another and work on ideas but to also build long-term relationships in the startup and business community.

“Our objective is to ensure the participants get a lot out of the experience and hopefully some of these teams end up sticking together and forming real startups,” says Sunil Sharma, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at OCAD U’s Imagination Catalyst, and one of the Startup Weekend’s organizers. “Choosing your co-founders and your team is the most critical step in creating startups and it is not an easy thing to accomplish. We love it when people who come together over the course of a Startup Weekend end up sticking together and carrying on with their product or idea well after the event is over.”

“The best thing to keep in mind is that Toronto is recognized as one of the top startup cities anywhere in the world and OCAD U is located right in the heart of the startup cluster,” says Sharma. “Design is what separates billion dollar startups from those that never break into widespread adoption. This is a reason for OCAD U students, alumni and faculty to be very interested in the ongoing trends in this space.”

Learn more:
Startup Weekend Toronto
OCAD U’s Imagination Catalyst