DISRUPT with Ravi Ravindran

Jeffery Potvin, an angel investor in multiple regions; York Angels, Spark & GTAN Angels, Screening Committee Member and the Driving force behind Open People Network(OPN)! OPN is a group of angel investors helping accelerate the growth of early stage startups through Virtual Accelerator, The Supporters Fund and Pitchit Series. Invested in 40+ companies, Jeffery is a lifelong entrepreneur with a proven track record of building companies and reinventing existing businesses. Working with a list of great startups to enterprise clients over the years. Jeffery is a mentor and a professor at Seneca college.

Nicholas Fisher is a web developer and the founder of an app called Tap Menu. This app allows customers to order with their phones while in a restaurant, see more details about the food they wish to order, and pay their bill through their phone. He's also a fan of all things tech and is optimistic that the gains in technology will continue to empower society even if there are some nefarious side effects in automation and the gig economy. He attributes his ability to make a well crafted and feature packed app in a relatively short period of time to the amazing assortment of modern web development technologies available to web developers.

The opinions expressed in this podcast are the guest's own and do not reflect the view of the Business Development Bank of Canada or the government of Canadian.

Maria has extensive experience in commercial banking with a passion for tech based businesses. Intuitive and naturally drawn to fast paced environments, Maria has always gravitated towards working with entrepreneurs. Her understanding of tech companies and strong lending background serve her and clients well in her role as a Senior Business Development Manager at BDC..

The BDC is Canada’s business development bank and the only financial institution devoted exclusively to entrepreneurs. Their mission is to help create and develop strong Canadian businesses through financing, consulting services and securitization, with a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises. Through our subsidiary—BDC Capital, we also offer a full spectrum of specialized financing, including venture capital, equity as well as growth and business transition capital.

BDC is Canada’s first B Corp bank. B Corps are certified Beneficial companies. Their purpose is to create value for society as well as money. They meet high standards of transparency and accountability, and create positive social and environmental benefit. Learn more at www.bcorporation.net.

Johnny Yang, the host of the YouTube channel Silver Talks. He is a full time day trader and real estate investor. Johnny's goal is to educate people on how they can achieve financial freedom through trading or other means of investing.  As an individual who has retired at the age of 26, he share tips and secrets that he used to achieve success on stock markets and business ventures.

If you're tired of working for someone and want to build your path to financial freedom, or if you are already an investor that is struggling to make consistent profits. Make sure to subscribe to the Silver Talks channel.

Andres's passion for tech, business and fitness compelled him to start Gym Ting, a fitness app that aims to help everyone reach their fitness goals. He uses his experience being the CTO of an award winning app and a Techstars alumni to help other startups get started. The rare times he's not working on his startup, you'll find him at the gym or playing games.

Oply helps startups get started.

Their talented team is entirely based in Toronto, meaning all projects are made in-house and are never outsourced to any other teams. You can rest assured knowing that even after they complete your project it will be taken care of it for 30 days, absolutely free.

Nima Tahami is the Founder of ShiftRide, an app that allows people to rent out cars from other people in the area, by the hour or by the day. He's worked on a few startups in the past while in school but decided to pursue ShiftRide full time out of having a personal need for the solution. Nima's background is in tech and UI/UX design and he's developed a number of games and apps on the app store generating tens of thousands of downloads before starting ShiftRide.

ShiftRide is an on-demand mobility platform, allowing people to get access to cars nearby. Users can book a car owned by others in their community, whether they need to grab food, run an errand, or go out with friends. Car owners in the community list their car on ShiftRide to earn money and begin sharing when they're not using their car.

Users simply sign up with their driver's license, get verified, and pick a car that suits their needs. Users get charged based on how much they used the car, once they're done with their booking. ShiftRide provides insurance, gas, and 24/7 support to ensure that you can safely and easily drive throughout your booking.

ShiftRide is currently operational in Kitchener-Waterloo area.

Richard Cao is the founder & CEO of Roll, a company provides  electric scooter sharing services. With innovative technologies and enhanced vehicles, Roll aims to offer the safest scooter share in the market. Roll is now operating in Kelowna, BC, and going to Calgary, Edmonton and Montreal next year.

Roll Technologies Inc. is a Canadian start-up founded in March 2019. The company aims to provide a better mobility solution to cities and campuses by providing dock-less electric scooters sharing service.

Shared electric scooter, as an innovative transportation, has been embraced by over 100 cities in the world. It has improved urban transportation by solving the “last mile” problem, and by decreasing residents’ dependence on personal owned vehicles.

Among the emerging electric scooter operators, Roll, as a Canadian start-up, differentiates itself by focusing on safety. Working in close partnership with the University of Toronto, we have successfully developed many exclusive technologies that allow us to ensure ​safer use of the product.

Anand graduated from the University of Waterloo with an Honours Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and holds the CPA, CA designations.

Anand Ganeshalingam is an associate on the investment team at iGan Partners. In this role, Anand provides support in origination, diligence, and execution of iGan investments, and is actively involved in monitoring and assisting existing portfolio companies as a board observer.

Prior to joining iGan Partners, he worked at Vena Solutions, a Toronto-based enterprise SaaS company, and at KPMG LLP, as a senior consultant.

Dikshant Batra is a graduate of U of T Scarborough, and of The Hub. He is a successful serial entrepreneur who has successfully launched several companies, including Nova & Sentio, KorsAll, and Torinit. Presently, he is the CEO of Torinit, which is a Toronto-India IT company doing well in Toronto. Tune in to learn how he scaled Torinit from a startup to a thriving corporate business. Dikshant is an engaging speaker and a great entrepreneur to connect with.

Torinit is a team of technology priests, headquartered in Toronto, ON operating across 2 continents, who preach the power of technology to make a meaningful difference in their customers’ ecosystem. They are a powerhouse of technology enthusiasts who believe that business value chains can be improved with the help of technology solutions. Torinit's primary focus is app-enabling emerging technologies. They started their business developing internet based software that has now branched out into Mobile Development, AI (Artificial Intelligence), Machine to Machine Communications, and chatbots. Torinit believes that custom software is the most powerful tool and will remain so for decades to come.

A former Montrealer, Sean moved to Toronto five years ago to begin practicing at one of Canada's largest corporate law firms. With a focus on general corporate law, Sean developed an interest in the "business side of law," particularly areas of increased efficiency in legal service and new technology implementation.

MinuteBox is a cloud-based entity management solution for law firms, accounting firms and in-house counsel that helps with the storage, management and maintenance of corporate records (i.e. incorporation documents, by-laws, resolutions, share certificates, etc).

Using the MinuteBox platform, users can view, share, edit and update their corporate records, also known as minute books, seamlessly. Users can also track all corporate data in our powerful database, linking database records to minute book pages as well as utilize the AI-assisted parsing of scanned information, document generation and government filing tools.