1:1 Student Coaching
The best way to learn about growing your ideas is from those who have successfully done so.
Our network of coaches includes a variety of individuals made up of founders, small business owners, early employees from successful startups, and experienced entrepreneurs. They are available to meet on-on-one or in a small group to discuss your startup ideas and aspirations and help guide you to turning your concept into a reality.
In addition to these fantastic coaches, we have close relationships with the other support units on campus. To provide the best resources possible, you may be referred to one of our partners whose expertise best match with your needs.
First Coaching Session
Looking to meet with a Velocity Coach for the first time to discuss your startup business ideas, ask specific entrepreneurship questions, and/or get feedback on an upcoming pitch? Click below to request a meeting with a Velocity Coach.
Returning Students
Have you already met with a coach and are looking to book another session? Click below to set up another meeting, with the same coach you spoke with, or a new Velocity Coach of choice. Not sure who else you can chat with? Scroll down to check out our coaches and see their bios.
Check out our roster of experienced coaches below. Determine who may be able to best meet your needs, and help you make the impact you dream of. If you aren’t sure, enter into the Innovation Portal where a Velocity representative will guide you in the right direction.
Not sure and need some guidance on what you should do? Enter into our Innovation Portal. A Velocity representative will guide you in the right direction.
Let us help you get there.
Visit the Innovation PortalPlease Note: Students who miss more than two sessions without at least eight hours notice will no longer be eligible for coaching sessions. If you need to cancel an appointment with a Coach, please make sure to do so at least 24 hours in advance by using the link in the invite or through a direct email to the Coach.
They’re Friendly, We Promise
Our Coaches
Nicole Troster
Nicole manages an award-winning accelerator program. She enjoys helping entrepreneurs to use business model innovation as well as market and user research to create opportunities for disruption.
Expertise: Service design, regulation, IP & patenting, customer discovery, pitch coaching
Jotham Chow
Jotham is an avid supporter of early-stage, impact-focused founders. He has supported health, education and environmental startups in building out impact and ESG-related metrics, fundraising strategy and pitching.
Expertise: Pitch coaching, problem/idea formulation, legal documents & incorporation
Krysta Traianovski
Krysta supports early-stage teams with both their business and technical development through Velocity Science (ESC 232). She graduated from the University of Waterloo with a BSc in Chemistry and an MBET. In 2016, Krysta co-founded BrightGuide, a software company in the healthcare space.
Areas of expertise: Early technology development (chemistry, nanotechnology, biotechnology), business model validation, customer validation, public speaking
Industry experience: Advanced materials, biotechnology, health tech
Pat Martinson
Pat has co-founded or been an early employee at four hardware startups. He’s worn many hats including roles in recruitment, project management, and supply chain.
Expertise: Hardware, prototyping, problem/idea formulation, pitch coaching, customer discovery
Armin Eichhorn
Armin co-founded three startups and helped them get to first customers and their initial growth phase. Armin’s superpower is to help founders validate their startup idea with customer. Over the years he has coached hundreds of founders, most of them between zero and their first few million dollars in annual revenue.
Areas of expertise: Customer validation, pitch coaching, customer success, product management, project management
Industry experience: E-commerce, health tech, logistics
Youssef Helwa
Youssef is the CEO of NERv, a medical device startup. Prior to founding NERv, he worked on another startup in the entertainment space.
Expertise: Science, IP, problem/idea formulation, legal/incorporation
Tamer Shahin
Tamer provides technical support and mentorship to early-stage student teams that are working on their digital technology ideas, including hardware and software support. Prior to joining Velocity, Tamer worked in multiple roles leading engineering design teams.
Areas of expertise: Design for Manufacturing, Product Design, Electronics, Mechanical systems, Systems Engineering, Productivity Management, Project Management
Industry experience: Manufacturing, technology startups, mechanical engineering, solar energy
Amr Abdelgawad
Amr is passionate about entrepreneurship and medtech. As COO at NERv, he wears multiple hats allowing him to gain experience in fundraising, pitching, business strategy, and operations.
Expertise: Sales & biz dev, customer discovery, pitch coaching, legal & IP
Paul Heidebrecht
Paul directs an incubator program for peace-focused start-ups, and also supports our campus entrepreneurship ecosystem by facilitating participation in Oxford’s annual Map the System challenge and Conrad Grebel University College’s PeaceTech Living Learning Community.
Expertise: Problem & idea formulation, social impact, political engagement
Ramin Shaikhi
Ramin loves taking big problems and dissecting them down into more manageable and less scary chunks. He is the co-founder of IntelliCulture and has a strong experience in prioritizing objectives to maximize growth.
Expertise: Problem & idea formulation, pitch coaching, hardware & software development, prototyping
Ben Graham
Ben is passionate about developing programming and opportunities to support students at the earliest stage of innovation through problem analysis. He has worked on initiatives and projects with Canadian organizations and corporations where he researched commercial problems affecting industry.
Areas of expertise: Problem / Idea Formulation, Pitch Coaching, Market Research
Industry experience: Education
Judy Chang
Judy loves helping founders in the food and education space. She is known for her practical and empathetic approach in problem identification, user discovery, and personal growth. She has two teenage daughters, loves teaches Leadership and Entrepreneurship at Seneca College, co-founded York Region’s Food Accelerator, and is a certified Life Coach.
Expertise: Leadership skills, Food CPG industry, problem/idea formulation, pitch coaching
Keyma Prince
Keyma is passionate about health technology and medical research. She’s co-founded a health tech startup and held industry positions focused on human factors/usability and systems engineering for medical device development.
Expertise: Research, problem/idea formulation, customer discovery, medical device development
Dylan Itzikowitz
Dylan is an Associate at Expa, where he works to identify and support talented founders for Expa’s pre-seed investments. He has also created a social enterprise called The Forward Movement that promotes accessibility and inclusion for people with disabilities.
Expertise: Problem/idea formulation, pitch coaching, customer discovery
John Dick
John oversees the strategy of Velocity Campus programming on campus and is in charge of creating inspiring experiences for students who are interested in business and innovation. He was a cofounder of Nicoya where he led its R&D efforts for 7 years as CSO from start to Series A.
Areas of expertise: Spinning out technology from a university, market validation, business creation
Industry experience: Early stage business activities, Product development and R&D, Manufacturing
Contact for: Commercialization of research and deep tech, Venture exploration from side projects and capstones
Emily Martin
Emily is Velocity’s Entrepreneurship Experience Coordinator. She plans and facilitates programs for entrepreneurial-minded students, including the $5K competition.
Contact for: If you have questions about Velocity and what we do.
Prashanth Madhi
Prashanth is an Engineering leader with a creative mindset who thrives on solving complex problems using innovative tools & techniques. He’s a Digital Consultant, Keynote Speaker & a Life Coach – focused on helping people pursuing their passions.
Expertise: Problem/idea formulation, customer discovery, pitch coaching, software development & prototyping, marketing, sales, science/deep tech
Shoma Sinha
Shoma is passionate about entrepreneurship and the innovation ecosystem. She has over a decade of experience in the ecosystem through involvement in an advanced materials startup/scale-up, as a co-founder and leader of non-profit initiatives, and as the lead of a clean-tech accelerator program.
Expertise: Problem/idea formulation, hardware development & prototyping, IP & patenting, science/deep tech, customer discovery, sales & business development
Tony Brijpaul
Tony Brijpaul is a Co-Founder and first employee of Miovision, a leader in Smart Transportation. He built the organization into a global technology company with a revenue CAGR of 38% over the last 10 years, customers in over 60 countries, and over 250 staff.
Expertise: Problem/idea formulation, legal documents & incorporation, customer discovery, pitch coaching, hardware & software development, prototyping, IP & patenting
Dinuka Gunaratne
Dinuka is passionate about student success, coaching and mentorship. Over the last decade, he has worked across multiple provinces and post-secondary institutions and has supported the work of student entrepreneurs.
Expertise: Problem/idea formulation, pitch coaching, marketing, science/deep tech
Pulkit Arora
An innovator with a profound grasp of Blockchain, AI and ML, Pulkit Arora is a seasoned leader with a solid commercial acumen and operational success in driving aggressive omnichannel campaigns and customer-centric strategies internationally.
Expertise: Problem/idea formulation, Prototyping, Sales, Pitch Coaching, Customer Discovery
Matthew Sefati
Matt loves helping founders in the health technology space (diagnostics, digital health, medical devices). He is the COO of Curiato, with experience in clinical trials, regulatory (FDA/Health Canada), hospital sales (NA), raising capital and product usability.
Expertise: Problem/idea formulation, Sales, Pitch Coaching, Customer Discovery, Legal Documents & Incorporation, Science/deeptech
Jeffrey Liu
Jeffrey is an Associate Director at Scotiabank’s Technology and Innovation Banking, where he works closely with both early and growth stage startups on providing non-dilutive venture debt financing. He previously worked at a VC firm that focuses on Series-A/B investments and currently helps entrepreneurs with fundraising and pitch coaching. He is passionate about mentorship and has worked with many students who are exploring a career in tech.
Expertise: Problem/idea formulation, Sales, Pitch Coaching and Customer Discovery
Eric Wu
Eric is currently Revolut’s head of financial crime technology, and is actively building and operationalizing solutions for tackling financial crime covering a global customer of over 10 million customers. He is a 2015 Waterloo math alumni.
Expertise: Problem/idea formulation, Customer Discovery/Talking to the users, SW Dev & Prototyping
Pavel Bordioug
As VP of Technology at CarbonTerra, Pavel Bordioug is currently leading innovations in the agtech and blockchain spaces. He has a diverse set of experiences building startups including Savynet, a freelance management platform, as well as the satellite imagery analysis company NXT Farm, an agtech business which featured top industry advisors such as Chris Hadfield and Richard Titus. During his time at NXT Farm, the start-up expanded internationally offering precision agriculture services from the Canadian Prairies all the way to South Africa. From these companies he was able to make successful exits and is continuing his journey as an innovator in both agtech and blockchain.
Expertise: Problem/idea formulation, Science/Deeptech, Customer Discovery/Talking to users, SW Dev & Prototyping, AG Tech, Blockchainn, Fintech
Pablo Eder
Pablo has founded 3 payment startups in the areas of 3D printing, FinTech and content creation.
Expertise: Software, fundraising, sales
Mahdi Roohnikan
Mahdi is passionate about bringing domain knowledge to the market through scientific entrepreneurship and client-discovery. He has years of experience spaning across multiple domains including, Biotech, Medical devices, Biologics and project management. He has been actively involved in early stage startups and co-founded AIM colours as well as Sweanse.
Expertise: Problem/idea formulation, Science/Deeptech, Customer Discovery/Talking to users, Pitch Coaching, IP & Patenting, Project management, Biotech, Biopharma, Biochemical analytics, Nanoscience, Drug Delivery, Diagnostics.
Cole Powers
Cole is passionate about the people side of entrepreneurship. He is the co-founder of IntelliCulture (an agriculture tech startup) and has a mix of experience in pitching, customer discovery, and building tech.
Expertise: Pitch coaching, problem/idea formulation, customer discovery, prototyping/mockups
Ryan Chiu
Ryan enjoys working with passionate entrepreneurs who are raising capital to build their innovative ideas. He has helped founders develop best practices when pitching to VCs.
Expertise: Problem & idea formulation, early fundraising (seed & pre-seed), customer discovery
Alexander Mistakidis
Alexander is an entrepreneurial game designer and an investor at Pioneer Fund. He co-founded Gamelynx which launched games and websites to over a million people after going through Velocity and Y Combinator.
Expertise: Problem/idea formulation, customer discovery, pitch coaching, software development & prototyping