DiscoveryLab Team

The people involved in running DiscoveryLab events since our inception include the following who have experience in launching and growing companies and supporting entrepreneurs.

	Michael Overduin Director and Founder
	Tina Rinker Scientific Director, Calgary
	Trushar Patel Scientific Director, Lethbridge
	Ana Clementin Partnership Director
	Jessica Erskine Marketing Director
	Kristin Swenson Communications Director
	Richard Miner Financial Director

We are looking to grow.

People interested in joining our team to help us plan for the next phase include:

Craig Sherbourne
Eric Brown
Karla Blonsky
Kim Nguyen
Matt Parker
Ryan Mercer
Scott Reed
Ted Yoo

We thank them for their advice as we look for ways to expand our services.

Background on how we started:

"I conceived of DiscoveryLab in order to support the creation of high-value scalable products and services in fields including drug discovery, and let the University of Alberta leaders know in 2015 - and they were receptive!

A group of 36 PIs and reps from TEC Edmonton and NRC met in NANUC in April 2016 to discuss barriers encountered by researchers trying to commercialize their discoveries and do something about it.

A series of meetings were launched in 2017 for researchers to pitch plans and overcome hurdles with a group of experts. The first business plan presenter came from the University of Calgary, and thankfully a few sponsors came on board to cover the event costs.

Our meetings were designed on those of Science Capital, which I began running in the UK in 2010. At the time Tim Dafforn, Tim Knowles and I were patenting a polymer used to produce nanodiscs for drug discovery applications. This effort led to the international SMALP Network, an open innovation community now headquartered in Alberta.

DiscoveryLab meetings are designed to make it easier for academics and entrepreneurs to take their novel technologies to global markets to benefit society. Over time a network of 200 experts came on board to lend a hand.

We ran 25 DiscoveryLab meetings with over 250 pitches from teams who now come from across the province and nation. We switched to online events in March 2020 when we started our International COVID-19 Conference series.

In September 2021 we spun out as a company based in Alberta with nonprofit aims, and won our first award from ERIN to grow our events.

We ran a Federal Leaders Forum and Mayoral Candidate Forum to build alignment with the aspiring political structures, and look forward to building our services to support entrepreneurs and innovators."

- Michael Overduin