Inventor To Founder Showcase Event

Join YSpace and the IP Innovation Clinic at York University for the Inventor to Founder Showcase! 🎉 This inspiring evening celebrates the culmination of the Inventor to Founder Fellowship, a 13-week commercialization program powered by IPON, designed to empower researchers, students, faculty, and recent graduates to transform breakthrough innovations into market-ready ventures.

Over the past three months, our founders have:

• Challenged assumptions
• Validated market opportunities
• Developed and refined their minimum viable products (MVPs)
• Strengthened their commercialization and intellectual property strategies
• Collaborated with experienced mentors to bring their ventures to life

Now, it's time to see what they've built!

What to Expect

🎤 Founder Pitches
Watch founders present their innovative technologies and ventures.

💡 Emerging Startups
Discover solutions addressing real-world challenges across various industries.

🤝 Networking Opportunities
Connect with founders, investors, researchers, industry leaders, and members of York University's innovation ecosystem.

🎉 Celebrate Innovation
Join us in recognizing the achievements of this year's Inventor to Founder Fellowship cohort.

Whether you're an investor, entrepreneur, researcher, industry partner, student, or simply passionate about innovation, this is your chance to discover promising ventures, connect with ambitious founders, and be part of a growing community of innovators.

We look forward to welcoming you to an afternoon of innovation, collaboration, and celebration!

About YSpace

YSpace is York University’s pan-university entrepreneurship and innovation hub, supporting startups and entrepreneurs from various sectors and communities. Our programming spans scaling innovative technologies through customer and investor capital, scaling agri-food businesses into mass retail, and diversity-focused initiatives like ELLA for women-led businesses and partnerships with the Black Entrepreneurship Alliance (BEA) for Black-led businesses. We also have two physical hubs in the City of Markham and the Town of Georgina.

About IP Innovation Clinic

The IP Innovation Clinic is Canada’s largest and first-of-its-kind pro bono intellectual property clinic, based at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. The Clinic provides pro bono IP, innovation, and commercialization support to researchers at York University and across Ontario and Canada. It also offers Osgoode law student volunteers (“Clinic Fellows”) experiential learning opportunities, working under the supervision of lawyers from partner law firms to provide one-to-one IP information and assistance to inventors, entrepreneurs, startups, and small-to-medium-sized enterprises. The Clinic was launched in 2010 by its Founding Director, the Honourable Guiseppina (Pina) D'Agostino, and has offset an estimated $2.6M in legal fees through 5,700 hours of pro bono assistance to date.