Dejana Dua

Venture Partner, Anexa Capital and Advisor, ventureLAB

Dejana Dua is an early-stage investor, strategic advisor, and ecosystem builder with 25+ years of experience guiding technology ventures from concept to commercialization. As Managing Partner at Anexa Capital, she backs founders tackling global challenges in AI/ML, cybersecurity, life sciences, clean tech, quantum, and enterprise infrastructure. At ventureLAB, Dejana serves as Head of the Hardtech Investor Network, building national and global investment pathways for Canada’s most ambitious hardtech companies. She also leads the Investment Readiness Program, which has helped entrepreneurs unlock over $100M in combined equity and non-dilutive funding. Her expertise spans technical and market diligence, go-to-market strategy, and guiding founders through traction, product validation, and capital formation. Dejana's portfolio companies have won global innovation awards, secured landmark contracts, and attracted world-class investors including Khosla Ventures, M12, and Insight Partners. Dejana serves on the Board of Advisors at the George Washington University School of Business and mentors with Techstars, The Firehood, Ignite GTM, and Connectpreneur, advocating for women in tech and advancing global innovation.

Gaurav Bansal

CEO of AMG Venture Partners and Advisor, ventureLAB

Gaurav is a tech investor and startup advisor with a portfolio of over 35+ investments across 10 countries and experience in US$2Bn+ worth of IPOs, M&A, and private equity deals. As a Fractional Business Partner to CEOs, he specializes in investment readiness, AI/ML strategy, and global expansion. Gaurav serves as an Expert in Residence and Mentor across government-backed startup programs in North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia, and is a member of 550+ global angel syndicates. Gaurav has held key roles at multiple venture capital funds and investment banks, bringing deep sector expertise in MedTech, Robotics, Fintech, and Sustainability.

Allen Lau

Co-founder and Operating Partner, Two Small Fish Ventures

Recovering CEO, 3x Entrepreneur, Venture Capitalist by Profession, Electrical Engineer by Training, Founders’ Sounding Board. Allen Lau is Co-founder and Operating Partner at Two Small Fish Ventures, an early-stage deep tech venture capital firm focused on the next frontier in computing and its applications, reshaping large-scale behaviour, driven by the collapsing cost of intelligence. The firm is renowned for writing the crucial ‘first cheque’ to promising startups that later became world-class companies, such as SkipTheDishes, BenchSci, Printify, Story Protocol, Ideogram, and Ada, among many others. He is also the co-founder and former CEO of Wattpad, the world’s leading social storytelling platform. Allen led a global team that leveraged AI and data to disrupt the entertainment industry. Under his leadership from 2006 to 2022, Wattpad grew into a community of 100 million users, raised US$120 million from top VCs around the world, was acquired by the South Korean internet conglomerate Naver for US$660 million in 2021, and was subsequently spun out as part of the separate NASDAQ-listed company WEBTOON (WBTN). Allen is a visionary serial entrepreneur, a leader in Canada’s tech community, and a sought-after speaker and authoritative voice on entrepreneurship and the innovation economy. Twice named one of the Top 50 Most Influential People by Toronto Life, Allen has also been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Canada's prestigious Report on Business Magazine, among other publications. He also serves on the board of MaRS Discovery District, North America’s largest urban innovation hub; the Openmind Research Institute, a non-profit organization focused on conducting AI research to better understand minds; as well as various startups in which Two Small Fish has invested. Allen received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Toronto’s Electrical Engineering program. In 2020, he was inducted into the Engineering Alumni Hall of Distinction at the University of Toronto.

Daryl Ching

Founder and Owner of Vistance Capital Advisory

Daryl Ching is the founder of Vistance Accounting, a Toronto-based firm delivering controller-level accounting and fractional CFO advisory to owner-managed businesses across Canada, helping owners find where margin leaks and cash gets trapped, and preparing them for the moments when lenders and buyers look closely. He spent over a decade in investment banking, beginning at RBC Capital Markets structuring multi-billion-dollar transactions and later leading debt and equity financings at boutique firms. He now brings that same discipline to companies that get judged by lenders and buyers without the benefit of a capital markets team behind them. Vistance was named CanadianSME Small Business of the Year in 2024. Daryl has delivered his Financials Tell Stories session nearly 50 times to CEO peer groups across the country. He is a recurring guest on BNN Bloomberg and has written for The Globe and Mail and the Financial Post. He holds an Honours degree in Economics from Western University and is a CFA Charterholder.

Fatouma Ahmed

Director of Special Projects at the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario

Fatouma Ahmed is a public service executive and the Director of Special Projects at the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario. She is a values-driven executive leader and connector known for strategic insight, vision, and results. Leads complex, horizontal initiatives by convening diverse partners, enabling high-performing teams, and embedding equity and accessibility into program design and delivery. Demonstrated excellence in delivering results, fostering engagement, and upholding integrity and respect. Recipient of the Deputy Minister’s Integrity and Respect Award, One Public Safety Award, Deputy Minister Award for Extraordinary Achievement, and Yasmine Laroche Accessibility Award of Excellence.

June Jiao

CEO of TechBlazers

June Jiao is an accomplished educator, STEM leader, and CEO of TechBlazers, one of Canada's most celebrated STEM organizations. Known for guiding students to excellence in robotics, coding, and innovation competitions, Techblazers has helped lead teams to 13 World Championships and 26 international awards across prestigious events such as VEX IQ, VEX Robotics, ACSL, and NASA Space Apps Challenges. June has over 10 years of robotics teaching experience and has played a pivotal role in cultivating more than 50 World Championship-winning teams. Her impact on STEM education was recognized nationally when she was named one of Canada's Top 10 Teachers in 2020.

Marvin Raftopoulos

Founder and Executive Producer of Jozi Media

Marvin is the founder of Jozi Media, a video production and photography company dedicated to helping brands tell powerful stories through impactful visual content. With a background in the film industry, he has grown Jozi Media into a trusted creative partner for clients including Netflix, HarperCollins Canada, Disney, Coca-Cola, Adidas, and Microsoft. He is passionate about combining creativity and strategy to deliver high-quality productions that drive results.

Mohan Markandaier

Managing Partner at Good News Ventures

Mohan Markandaier is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and mentor with more than 25 years of experience building and scaling technology companies. He co-founded Pulse Voice Inc., a telecommunications software provider that was bootstrapped from inception to millions of dollars in revenue and nearly 100 employees. After successfully navigating the dot-com era, Pulse Voice was acquired by Enghouse Systems in 2009. Mohan later went on to build and achieve a second successful company exit, further solidifying his reputation as a growth-focused operator with deep expertise in scaling ventures, leadership, and strategic exits. Today, Mohan is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Good News Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on backing ambitious technology founders. Since launching the firm in 2017, he has helped build a portfolio of approximately 40 startups, investing primarily at the pre-seed and seed stages. Drawing on his firsthand experience as a founder, Mohan takes a hands-on approach to helping entrepreneurs navigate fundraising, growth, and M&A opportunities. Known for his ability to identify resilient founders with bold visions, he is passionate about supporting the next generation of innovators as they build market-leading companies.

Nanda Nagarajan

Manager of the National Outreach, Engagement and Service Design team, at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)

Nanda Nagarajan is a member of the Outreach and Engagement team, within the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) Program at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). He has a background in Engineering, has worked in the academic and private industry sectors, prior to joining the CRA in 2013. Nanda is passionate about bringing greater program awareness and support to businesses conducting R&D in Canada.

Martin Blais

Senior Corporate Services Officer at Canada Revenue Agency

Martin Blais is a member of the Outreach and Engagement team, within the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) Program at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Martin joined the CRA in 2012 and has been involved with the SR&ED program since 2019. Martin aims to help more businesses conduct R&D in Canada.

Simone Sherriff

Economic Development Officer, Outreach and Engagement

Simone Sherriff is a public servant with the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario. With nearly 10 years of experience in government relations, Simone's role is to raise awareness of the government programs and services available to help businesses and not-for-profit organizations strengthen and diversify economies across the region.

Pierre Cléroux

Vice President, Research and Chief Economist at BDC

Pierre Cléroux was appointed Vice President, Research and Chief Economist at BDC in 2012. Pierre leads a team of experts who analyze economic data to identify business and sector trends impacting Canadian entrepreneurs. A seasoned speaker, he helps business owners understand the risks and opportunities presented by the economic environment. Mr. Cléroux is also responsible for providing economic analysis and advice to the Bank’s senior management team and supervises all marketing and industry research activities. Over his 25-year career as an economist, he has held several influential positions that had a direct impact on entrepreneurs in Canada and abroad.

Kristy Smith

Senior Manager, Policy, Government Relations & Partnerships

Throughout her career, Kristy has been a trusted advisor and strategic policy leader, having worked with politicians and c-suite executives in all levels of government in Canada, the U.S., Europe as well as international organizations including the UN, WTO, and G20. Currently, Kristy oversees policy, partnerships, and government relations at IPON, supporting Ontario’s innovation and commercialization priorities through strategic IP, investment, and policy initiatives. Kristy was among the handful of employees that helped build the agency from the ground up driving communications, stakeholder engagement, and media strategy.

Zvonimir Fras

AI Advisor, ventureLAB

Zvonimir Fras helps early-stage founders get from a working prototype to paying customers. ‍ He has spent nine years at IBM's Canada Software Lab, first as a Staff Software Engineer and since 2020 as an Advisory Software Engineer. Two weeks into the job he moved onto the team building IBM's component library, before it became Carbon, and helped open-source it. ‍ He went on to start and open-source Carbon UI Builder, and more recently IBM VIBE, a platform for testing whether AI agents actually do what they claim. He was a core maintainer on Carbon's Angular implementation, is a named inventor on an issued IBM patent, and won IBM Canada's Excellence in Programming award. ‍ Before IBM he was a freelancer, a first engineer, a technical co-founder, and spent time in the public sector. About twenty years across the stack. He has also built audiences from nothing, including a cooking personality and a motivational site, both on Google+ before Google shut the platform down. ‍ He is currently building Upschooler, a discovery network for families educating outside the default path, which means the zero-to-one problems he advises on are ones he is solving that week rather than recalling from a previous decade. ‍ With ventureLAB founders he works on the seam where most early companies stall: technical decisions that hold up under growth, whether AI features can be demonstrated rather than merely claimed, and the positioning and investor-readiness work that turns a build into revenue.

Garry Chan

Head of AI, ventureLAB

Garry Chan is a technology entrepreneur, investor, and advisor. He is passionate about advising, building, and scaling technology-driven businesses. He is the Chief AI Advisor/Head of AI Initiatives at ventureLAB, a leading Canadian deep tech incubator that helps founders scale globally competitive ventures. He is also the Chief Technology Officer at AI Partnerships Corp, whose mission is to make AI more accessible and affordable by building an affiliate AI network and investing in enterprise AI technology. ‍ Garry educates, mentors, and advises tech companies directly and through universities and incubators. He also designs and teaches postgraduate courses in technology. ‍ He graduated from the University of Calgary (BSc), the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto (Executive MBA), and Carnegie Mellon University (MSc). ‍