University of Waterloo students and alumni are changing the game by launching companies with global impact for humanity and our planet. Their remarkable achievements have earned them spots on this year's illustrious Forbes' 30 Under 30 list.
The annual list highlights young entrepreneurs who are making a difference in their fields. Waterloo-linked founders were named in artificial intelligence (AI), green tech, education, food and drink and manufacturing categories.
Category: Energy and Green Tech
Aida Mollaei (MES '2020, PhD '2024), co-founder, Adaptis Technologies
Aida Mollaei, co-founder and CTO of Adaptis, is at the forefront of sustainability innovation with a carbon optimization platform that has secured over $7 million in equity and non-dilutive funding. Since 2022, the Velocity startup has evaluated more than 400 buildings, enabling clients to save millions of dollars while preventing 145,000 tons of CO2 emissions. Mollaei currently leads the product development team, overseeing a dedicated group of 12 engineers, designers and data scientists committed to driving environmental impact. She shares this accomplishment with her co-founder and fellow Waterloo alum Sheida Shahi (PhD '21).
Category: Education
Holden Beggs (BASc '2020) and Jackson Mills (BCS '2021), co-founders, The Zero Experience
Driven by a shared vision, Holden Beggs and Jackson Mills founded The Zero Experience a nonprofit with a mission to impart entrepreneurial skills to students at post-secondary institutions, including the University of Waterloo. The program emphasizes starting from scratch, teaching young innovators to execute their ideas even before they have a groundbreaking business concept. Since its inception in 2020, The Zero Experience has engaged 4,600 students, guiding them to develop practical solutions to pressing issues such as climate change.
Category: Food and Drink
Jeffrey Chu (BASc '2018), co-founder, Yuugi Izakaya
Jeffrey Chu (BASc '2018) began his journey on a conventional path, earning an engineering degree. However, his passion for food led him to a culinary class in Tokyo, sparking his dream of opening an izakaya-style restaurant in Toronto. Leaving his secure job, he started as a dishwasher at a Japanese restaurant, where he met chef Yuki Tanaka. Together, they launched Yuugi Izakaya. Chu has since opened Toronto's first Japanese sports bar, a café by day and bar at night, and is developing a boutique hotel set to open in early 2025. With $3.3 million in funding, he anticipates $3 million in revenue for 2024.
Category: Manufacturing and Industry
Dylan Conway (BASc '2020) and Jim Zhu, co-founders, (BASc '2020) | Squint
In 2021, Dylan Conway and Jim Zhu, alongside CEO Devin Bhushan, founded Squint to bridge the knowledge gap between new manufacturers and retiring experts. Based in San Jose, California, the company develops AI-powered software that automates data entry, manages equipment and creates training plans for manufacturers. The company has secured $19 million in funding from investors like Sequoia and Menlo Ventures, with clients including Michelin, Nestlé, Colgate-Palmolive, Volvo, and Siemens. Zhu and Conway serve as the founding engineer and founding customer lead, respectively.
Category: AI
Serena Ge and Charley Lee, co-founders, Datacurve AI
During a machine learning internship at Cohere, Waterloo computer science student Serena Ge noticed a significant lack of quality data for training advanced AI models. To tackle this issue, she partnered with another budding computer scientist Charley Lee, to launch Datacurve earlier this year. Datacurve provides companies with data to train AI in coding through a gamified platform where contributors earn money by solving problems, thus generating valuable data for enterprises. The co-founders were involved with Velocity on campus through various events and programs and have recently joined Y Combinator, a prestigious startup incubator in Silicon Valley.
Category: Marketing and Advertising
Vidyut Ghuwalewala, co-founder, Social Currant
In 2020, Waterloo's Peace and Conflict Studies student, Vidyut Ghuwalewala, teamed up with Ellie Artone and Ashwath Narayanan and launched Social Currant a Gen Z-led platform that links mission-driven organizations with social media creators to enhance their reach and develop marketing campaigns. Since its inception, they have collaborated with more than 3,000 creators, distributing more than $5 million directly to them. Social Currant generated $2 million in revenue in 2023 and anticipates $6 million this year. Their business model offers tiered services, from a "starter kit" that provides access to a database of content creators, to an "enterprise plan" for full-scale campaign management. Their clients include NextGen America, the U.S. Capitol Historical Society and Repair the World.
Other innovators with connections to Waterloo's flagship incubator, Velocity, include Myra Arshad and Avneet Ghotra. Read more about their accomplishments below.
Category: Manufacturing and Industry
Alt Tex
In March 2020, Arshad and Ghotra founded Alt Tex, a biomaterials company dedicated to creating a sustainable alternative to polyester using food waste. Their innovative fabric, which contains no plastics, is claimed to be stronger than cotton. Remarkably, a single shirt made from this fabric can divert one kilogram of food waste from landfills, reduce nine kilograms of CO2 emissions, and prevent four grams of microplastics from entering waterways. Based in Toronto, Alt Tex won H&M's Global Change Award in 2023 and has raised $3.5 million from investors, including Y Combinator.
