The Germinator 2024-2025

The Germinator is where we explore ideas about commercialization, entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, innovation, and any other pathway that takes science/engineering/technology from the lab/workshop and into people’s hands. This is NOT a course, and ALL are welcome to attend, students, faculty, staff, members of the general public. You don’t need to have prior knowledge or experience, your curiosity is all that is needed.

Throughout the year, I will bring guests to join me virtually (via Zoom), to share their stories and experiences with commercialization, entrepreneurship and innovation. If you would like to suggest possible guests you think others would like to hear from, feel free to connect with me at alon.eisenstein@ubc.ca


The Germinator is coordinated and offered by UBCO School of Engineering’s Dr. Alon Eisenstein, in partnership with entrepreneurship@UBCO


Welcome to the 2024-2025 Program!

Below you will see the scheduled dates for this year’s series. Information will be updated regularly as guests are confirmed.

This year, I will host all of the conversations on Wednesdays, 1-2pm, via Zoom.

Each event requires advanced registration through the links provided next to each of the guests.

To be notified of future events, you can add yourself to our mailing list:


Upcoming events:

2025


February 26

Ketan Kaushish, Serial entrepreneur working in climate and sustainability

Ketan Kaushish has over ten years of experience working in the agriculture industry in commodity trading and in the seed, pesticide industry. Prior to founding Ukko Agro, Ketan was the global lead for Syngenta’s seed treatment portfolio for potato, cotton, and all vegetable crops.Prior to that, Ketan spent half a decade trading commodities with Louis Dreyfus and Cargill. Ketan has lived and worked across 3 continents and recently relocated to Canada in late 2016. Ketan is an MBA from Cornell University


March 26

Andrew Maxwell, Bergeron Chair In Technology Entrepreneurship, and Director Bergeron Entrepreneurs in Science and Technology

Andrew is the Bergeron Chair In Technology Entrepreneurship, and Director Bergeron Entrepreneurs in Science and Technology. He received his Ph.D. in Technology Entrepreneurship from the University of Waterloo in 2011, winning the Academy of Management’s Heizer Award for the top PhD in his field. He is also a journal editor for the Journal of Business Venturing.

While at Waterloo, Andrew taught the capstone technology entrepreneurship class, helping numerous technology entrepreneurs get their start. Prior to this Andrew worked for three years in the technology transfer office of the University of Toronto (also teaching at Rotman and UTM). Andrew’s work experience includes founding four technology companies and working in two technology multinationals. He has an MBA from London Business School, and a B.Sc. (Eng.) in Electrical Engineering, from Imperial College London


Past events:

October 16, 2024 (view recording here)

Jamie Wood, CEO / Founder of Autonomic

Jamie Wood is the CEO and Founder of the bio-technology platform Autonomic, and is changing the way people think and learn about their brains. Through neuroscience based products and cutting edge technologies, her mission is to enable every individual to understand and optimize their own brain performance. Jamie’s work focuses on supporting driven individuals in high-demand environments that rely heavily on their cognitive abilities, this includes executives, leaders, employees, athletes, and students.

Jamie is a speaker, mentor, brain performance expert, and researcher.

Having bootstrapped her brain performance technology company and brought a scientifically proven cognitive enhancement solution to market, Jamie understands the unique demands placed upon the brains of highly driven individuals in high-performance environments. Jamie has worked with some of the most exciting up and coming leaders in tech, gaming, extraction, marketing, student organizations, and big data. Her workshops and training programs are in North America’s VCs, Accelerators and Academic Institutions.

Jamie has led groundbreaking research studies looking at brain health in high-stress environments using Mobile EEG, and sits on the cutting edge of brain health technology working alongside world leading neuroscientists.

She has worked with over 100 founders and is a sought after speaker for Fortune 500 companies and top tech conferences.


October 30, 2024 (view recording here)

Tyson Percival, President and Founder of SYNC ROBOTICS, Intelligent Robotic Automation

Tyson Percival is the President and Founder of Sync Robotics, a general-industry robotics and automation integrator that builds bespoke, custom-engineered automated machinery and systems utilizing industrial robots, autonomous guided vehicles, machine vision, and a variety of other technologies. 

Founded in 2017, Sync has grown to the be largest industrial robotics integrator in Western Canada and supplies automated systems to a wide variety of manufacturing industries in both Canada and the USA.

Tyson has a background in manufacturing/process engineering, equipment design, and aerospace-focused mechanical engineering.


November 20, 2024 (view recording here)

Jill Ingvarsson, Industrial Technology Advisor, NRC IRAP

With a Waterloo Electrical Engineering degree and over 20 years in the software industry, Jill Ingvarsson is an experienced technical leader known for building and coaching high-performance teams to create simple solutions for complex problems. Jill has led projects such as a Middleware AI pathfinder for Unreal Engine and high-stakes pipeline solutions for major films like Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame, Black Panther, and the new Star Wars trilogy.  Previous roles include Director of Engineering at Deluxe Entertainment Services Group, Development Research Consultant for Activision and Technical Program Manager for Autodesk.

She excels in designing and delivering software solutions that simplify workflows and resolve conflicting requirements. Her expertise spans customer focused product design, people leadership, relationship management, and strategic roadmap planning.  She is passionate about applying AI and machine learning to practical applications like natural language processing and image processing.

Currently, as an Industrial Technology Advisor at the National Research Council Canada, Jill accelerates the growth of small and medium-sized businesses by providing funding and innovation advisory services.


December 4, 2024 (view recording here)

Ray Muzyka, co-founder and former CEO, BioWare and founder and CEO, ThresholdImpact

Originally trained as a MD, Dr. Ray Muzyka co-founded BioWare (www.bioware.com) in the early 1990s.  After two years of full time medical practice, rural emergency room/family medicine transitioned to part-time as he focused on his role as BioWare’s CEO for the next two decades, the last five years as SVP/Group GM of the BioWare division of Electronic Arts. Ray retired from video games in 2012, with his third career chapter at ThresholdImpact (www.thresholdimpact.com) focused on sustainable, profitable impact investing – mentoring and angel investing in deep tech social enterprise, health and medical innovations.

He obtained his BMedSci (UAlberta) in 1990, his MD (UAlberta) in 1992 and CCFP in 1994, and his MBA from Ivey’s School of Business (UWO) in 2001.

He was inducted into the Order of Canada in 2018, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences’ Hall of Fame in 2011, Alberta’s Business Hall of Fame in 2018, received the Venture Capital Association of Alberta’s Rod Charko Service Award in 2019, the International Game Developers Association’s 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award, U of A’s 2015 Alumni Innovation Award, MacEwan University’s 2017 Allard Chair in Business, and named a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society in 2021, among other awards.


January 8, 2025 (view recording here)

Carol A. Wilder, Principal Consultant and Founder of Product Muse AI

Carol Wilder is a strategic product management leader with over 25 years of experience in driving innovation across global tech companies as an intrapreneur including Dell Technologies, Puppet, Intel, and Amazon. She has spearheaded high-impact initiatives in AI, AIOps, and cloud infrastructure, managing cross-functional teams and delivering cutting-edge solutions that transform enterprise systems.

Recently, Carol served as Vice President of Product Management at Dell, Carol has been instrumental in leading generative AI projects, boosting compute and storage pipelines through AI solutions by 10X and 5X, respectively. As a pragmatic leader, she thrives in dynamic environments, balancing strategic vision with hands-on execution to drive growth and operational excellence.

Carol opened Product Muse AI in Kelowna to foster 3 things: 1) provide quality fractional product management for better decision making on strategy, roadmaps and priorities, 2) optimize AI integration to achieve optimal business outcomes and 3) mentoring product management as a skill set for business growth.  


January 22, 2025 (view recording here)

Cory Blumenfeld, Serial Entrepreneur (Caribou, CoHealth, DashMD)

4x founder with 2 exits, content creator, Cory is a self-described biz generalist with 10 years of experience in startups, operations, sales, and product. His companies have raised ~$5M, and he’s built an audience of over 25k followers on LinkedIn. Cory is on a mission to inspire 1M everyday people to start their biz and find their voice in the process.

Cory holds a BSc in Health Sciences from Wilfrid Laurier University and is a Next 36 Alumni, 2016. Outside of work, Cory is passionate about travel, healthcare, and rec league softball (call him if you ever need a sub!)


February 5, 2025 (view recording here)

Doan Winkel, Chair in Entrepreneurship at John Carroll University and the Cofounder of TeachingEntrepreneurship.org

Doan is an entrepreneur and an educator and strives to combine those two passions to help younger generations find their purpose and create a career around it. He is disruptive in everything he does, always searching for and trying out a more impactful way of doing things.

I’ve spent the last 15 years developing a strategy to move higher ed to a mastery-based approach to learning, and more recently I’ve been deep-diving into how to leverage AI to revolutionize education.

TechingEntrepreneurship.org helps entrepreneurship professors motivate their students to develop the skills necessary to thrive in a rapidly changing business environment, by developing and offering lesson plans that teach entrepreneurship skills in an experiential way.