evolution: a podcast by entrepreneurship@UBC

In this episode of our podcast evolution, Entrepreneur in Residence, Head of Venture Growth Strategy Michelle Sklar speaks with Kookai Chaimahawong, ESG Partner at UpperStage.Capital, on building financial literacy skills - where to start and how to advance your confidence - to the trends she is seeing across the investment landscape. Listen to get Kookai’s perspective on what changes she is seeing in industry, her advice for early-stage founders and why she thinks community will change the future of how we do things. 

Kookai Chaimahawong 

Throughout her career, Kookai Chaimahawong has been known for her curiosity, bold vision, and constantly pushing the boundaries of the existent. Her work expanded from launching an award-winning technology start-up, forming impact partnerships at the United Nations, and most recently investing in breakthrough technologies in climate, food & agriculture, and health at an impact Venture Capital fund.


Kookai's recommendations and resources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VhOWCOiSVoXfIpF62pkf7nFim4oPX6lm/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107318224356123846357&rtpof=true&sd=true

How can mining become a solution to climate change instead of a contributor? In this episode of evolution, hear from Dr. John Steen, Director of BRIMM, The Bradshaw Research Initiative for Minerals and Mining, on the future of mining and how it can wield solutions to the climate opportunity. Led by entrepreneurship@UBC’s Climate Venture Studio Lead Dr. Shannon Bard, the two discuss Dr. Steen’s origins as a ‘rock loving kid’ to his experience bridging academic research with industry to leverage discoveries into action.

About Dr. John Steen
Dr. John Steen has served as the BRIMM Director since July, 2020. Before that, he spent a year as the BRIMM Ambassador from the Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering.

He is skilled in developing collaborative research with industry and has 15 years of experience in managing industry research and commercialization partnerships.

About BRIMM
BRIMM creates multidisciplinary teams of leading researchers to work with industry to find solutions to the biggest challenges facing the mining industry and trains the next generation of multidisciplinary professionals.

evolution is a podcast shining light on our ecosystem’s stories of innovation, impact and hustle throughout their venture building journey. Join us as we build community and knowledge related to entrepreneurship during the course of COVID-19. 

Leadership in a time of crisis: As women stand on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, both the strength of their contributions and disproportionate burdens they carry, amplify the significant gaps in gender equality. Who are the leaders in our communities we can draw inspiration from and how are they leading in their organizations, institutions and communities?

Adapted from our International Women’s Day event, #IWD2021: Leadership in a Time of Crisis, we present to you an inspiring discussion unpacking the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on women entrepreneurs, leaders and innovators and learn how we, as an ecosystem, can move forward and take action. Featuring Kristina Bergman, Partner, Pender Ventures, Rohene Bouajram, Associate Director, Strategic IBPOC (Indigenous, Black and/or People of Colour) Initiatives at UBC, Nazneen Damji, Policy Advisor, Gender Equality, HIV, and Health, UN Women, and Michelle Sklar, Head of Brand and Marketing and EIR, entreprneurship@UBC.

evolution is a podcast shining light on our ecosystem’s stories of innovation, impact and hustle throughout their venture building journey. Join us as we build community and knowledge related to entrepreneurship during the course of COVID-19. 

On this week’s episode of the evolution podcast, host and entrepreneurship@UBC’s Creative Specialist MJ Araujo speaks with Valerie Song, Co-founder and CEO of AVA Technologies. AVA strives to let anyone grow anything, anywhere, shifting society’s preference away from cheap, mass agriculture tomore local, nutritious, and sustainable options with their smart indoor gardens. Learn how Valerie grew AVA from 5 to 15 people in the last year, scaling AVAs team culture to match their values driven principles and the new innovations coming down their pipeline.

About Valerie Song

BC 30 Under 30 winner Valerie Song, CEO of AVA, a startup making smart indoor gardens to help people get growing. Valerie is a passionate and bold leader that loves growing both plants and people. While working in brand management at blue-chip consumer product companies, she found a passion for brand building. She launched and marketed products from organic granola to craft beer. Under her leadership, AVA has gone to file 3 patents, raise $3M in funding, and win 15 different awards. Outside of work, Valerie is a proud advocate for diversity in STEM and youth entrepreneurship.

What makes someone an entrepreneur and how can we champion this mindset across our ecosystem? Dive into the latest adapted session from entrepreneurship@UBC Immersion Week titled “Entrepreneurial Thinking: What does it mean to be an entrepreneur in today’s world?” featuring Valerie Song of AVA Technologies, Emre Akkas and Hanna Golota of GlobalMe, Harrison Brown of HeadCheck Health, Kim Kaplan, formerly of Plenty of Fish and Pieter Dorsman of Angel Forum to learn about their entrepreneurial journeys: what inspired them to pursue entrepreneurship, how they nurture culture and how YOU can create a business that drives impact.

Moderator: Pieter Dorsman, Director, Angel Forum

Host: Chang Han  EIR, entrepreneurship@UBC

Speakers:

Hanna Golata and Emre Akkas, Co-founders, GlobalMe

Kim Kaplan, previously VP Product with Plenty of Fish/Match.com

Valerie Song, Co-founder & CEO, AVA Technologies

Harrison Brown, Co-founder & CEO, Headcheck Health

A Bold Green Recovery Roundtable Discussion with Toby Heaps 

Adapted from Fall 2020’s entrepreneurship@UBC Immersion Week 

evolution is a podcast shining light on our ecosystem’s stories of innovation, impact and hustle throughout their venture building journey. Join us as we build community and knowledge related to entrepreneurship during the course of COVID-19. 

The topic that should be on everyone's mind? Climate change. A Bold Green Recovery Roundtable Discussion with Toby Heaps, CEO & Editor-in-Chief, Corporate Knights, is another incredible live session that came from our entrepreneurship@UBC Immersion Week, with speakers Jeanette Jackson, CEO, Foresight; Janice Larson, Strategic Policy, Planning & Partnerships, Muse & Effect Consulting; John Steen, Director of the Bradshaw Initiative in Minerals & Mining; Terri Lynn Morrison, Director of Strategic Partnerships & Communications,Indigenous Clean Energy; and EiRs and Co-leads of our Climate Venture Studio at entrepreneurship@UBC, Paul Needham and Shannon Bard. These experts discuss the report co-written by Toby Heaps, Building Back Better with a Bold Green Recovery to further dive into how innovators can be a force for change and the role of entrepreneurs in creating a better future.

evolution is a podcast shining light on our ecosystem’s stories of innovation, impact and hustle throughout their venture building journey. Join us as we build community and knowledge related to entrepreneurship during the course of COVID-19. 

Finding the right team players to help build your company speaks volumes towards the growth of your organization. But how do you start? This week, we had an opportunity to hear from a remarkable CEO, who is not only a big supporter of entrepreneurship@UBC, but an entrepreneur that understands the importance of building a winning team. For this episode, How to Get From Zero to Hero: Six Tips for Developing a Winning Team, we were privileged to speak with Graham Lee, President and CEO of GSL Holdings, hosted by Michelle Sklar, EIR and Head of Brand Marketing at entrepreneurship@UBC.

About Graham Lee 

Graham Lee is President and CEO of GSL Group, one of Canada’s leading commercial/ recreational development and operations companies. After founding several businesses in his teens, Graham created a business plan while working on his UBC degree in the commerce undergraduate entrepreneurship program, which set the stage for RG Properties, a unique start-up real estate development company that he founded in 1989 at the age of 25. GSL has long-term real estate holdings in properties developed by GSL, including Planet Ice recreational facilities, multi-use arenas, hotels and shopping centres, residential mixed-use developments, major industrial buildings, construction, the Victoria Royals WHL hockey team, a private airplane charter business, and blueberry farming, as well as operations in food and beverage, concert production, ticketing, ice arena operations, outdoor music festivals, and online fantasy sports (officepools.com).

About Michelle Sklar 

Michelle Sklar is a performance driven marketing and communications leader with over two decades of comprehensive achievements in digital marketing, PR, strategic partnerships, community management and numerous entrepreneurial endeavours. She has focused her professional career development on bringing ideas from inception to execution in the Emerging Technology, Digital Media, Events and Nonprofit industries. Her broad cross-functional expertise is in brand and digital asset management, content creation, B2B SaaS, team building, project management and analytics. She thrives in Startups and fast paced environments, where culture and vision match the desire to be transformative. When not working, Michelle can be found travelling, cooking great meals and enjoying live music. Michelle and her partner recently acquired a UVIN (wine making business) and are the new proprietors of the Wine Factory in New Westminster.

What does it take to get a startup off the ground and how can you find the resources to get you there? Adapted from our entrepreneurship@UBC Immersion Week (EIW) session, "What it takes to get started with us", hear from 3 ventures a part of entrepreneurship@UBC's program on how they began their entrepreneurial journey, what they've learned so far and how they've grown from idea to fully fledged company. Featuring Ina Na of DECAP Research & Development, Yajur Sondhi of Nyoka and Mirjam Mai of Fibrilex, and moderated by Thealzel Lee of VANTEC and E-Fund.

What does it take to get a startup off the ground and how can you find the resources to get you there? Adapted from our entrepreneurship@UBC Immersion Week (EIW) session, "What it takes to get started with us", hear from 3 ventures a part of entrepreneurship@UBC's program on how they began their entrepreneurial journey, what they've learned so far and how they've grown from idea to fully fledged company. Featuring Ina Na of DECAP Research & Development, Yajur Sondhi of Nyoka and Mirjam Mai of Fibrilex, and moderated by Thealzel Lee of VANTEC and E-Fund.

evolution is a podcast shining light on our ecosystem’s stories of innovation, impact and hustle throughout their venture building journey. Join us as we build community and knowledge related to entrepreneurship during the course of COVID-19. 

On this week’s episode of our podcast, evolution, host and entrepreneurship@UBC’s Creative Specialist MJ Araujo speaks with TasteAdvisor Founder and CEO, Alyssa Farr. TasteAdvisor is a technology platform that matches individual consumer taste preferences to wine, with a matching accuracy greater than 80%. Alyssa shares how she set out to solve one of the industry’s most complicated problems and how TasteAdvisor is creating wins for the entire wine ecosystem.  

About Alyssa Farr 

Alyssa Farr is Founder and CEO of TasteAdvisor, the Okanagan-focused wine app that helps people discover their new favourite wines, in amazing venues, all while enjoying a local wine experience that was custom-crafted for them. Additionally, Alyssa acts as a business coach, is the owner of Unlimited Contracting (a social enterprise residential and commercial maintenance renovation company) and is an Entrepreneur in Residence at Purppl. 

About TasteAdvisor 

TasteAdvisor  takes the guesswork out of buying wine. 

TasteAdvisor is a venture that was part of entrepreneurship@UBC Okanagan. Learn more about e@UBCO, here.

Interested in furthering your own entrepreneurial journey? Join us September 8th at our Community Town Hall and sign up to be the first to register for our first ever entrepreneruship@UBC Immersion Week, September 28th to October 2nd, where we will demystify entrepreneurship in the innovation economy.