Daniel McInnis 18 Student | Creator | Entrepreneur Lived in - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

A Story of Youth Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Daniel McInnis – 18 Student | Creator | Entrepreneur

§ Lived in Ottawa, ON up until last year § Going into 2nd Year Mechanical Engineering @ UofT § Passionate about product design & designing for a better world § Favourite sports include:

§ Skating, hockey & skiing

Textbooks vs. Experience – a bit of both? Doing the science fair Releasing your BIG IDEA to the world What’s next?

What I learned about the value of the two combined

§ Bill Gates – net worth: $80 billion § Oprah Winfrey – net worth: $3 billion § Mark Zuckerberg – net worth: $36 billion § Ralph Lauren – net worth: $7 billion § Richard Branson – net worth: $5 billion

IN

§ Bees wings are too small to carry the mass of their body

§ No one ever told the bees that however

§ And that is why they can fly

§ Same idea for young entrepreneurs

§ They haven’t yet been convinced that there is only “one way of doing things”

§ Therefore, they are able to come up with new ideas no one ever thought of

Not your typical “baking soda & vinegar volcano” event…

What I expected What it really was like

§ Tested & compared a number of hockey helmets on the market § Designed my own better helmet

§ Addressing BOTH linear & rotational concussions (something that hadn’t been done before)

§ Qualified for & Competed at the:

§ Ottawa Regional Science Fair § Canada-Wide Science Fair

§ Looking to take the helmet to market

§ Hoping to license to a large hockey/football helmet manufacturer

§ Future Dragon Competition – Top 10 Teen Entrepreneurs in Canada

§ Chosen by Kevin O’Leary

§ Top 100 – Extreme Tech Challenge (Global Tech Start-Up Challenge)

§ Sponsored by Richard Branson

§ Canadian Patent Issued § US Patent Pending

§ Bringing a big change to an industry that hasn’t shifted in a long time § Learning that age & experience is an obstacle, but not a roadblock § Maybe even help protect a number of kids & families

§ This would allow them to stay healthy & stay playing the sports they love

§ Wanted to do another science fair project, but didn’t know what I wanted to do § I knew I wanted to:

§ Create something that helps people § Do something that shakes up an industry

§ Took a summer job at Fidus Systems – Ottawa-based engineering firm

§ Learned that I like programming, but loved the mechanical side of things § Worked with 3D scanners – actually learning how to build one!

§ Soon after, I learned about “the gap” in the prosthetics industry

§ Goal: Produce a method of rapidly designing custom prostheses for a low cost,

with limited skill required

§ I still had to maintain the quality and feel you expect from a traditional custom prosthetic

§ Met many amputees & their families § 1st time in my life that I realized:

§ The work that we do is often much bigger than just us

§ I was shown first hand that there’s a greater impact to what we do

BIG IDEA

Now it’s the fun part J

§ Really think about what path you want to go down, there are so many! § People will always be there to support your idea, you just have to be ready to sell

them on it

§ The most important thing:

§ Just dive in, you’ve got a whole lot to gain.

Traditional Business/Licensing Route

§ This is what everyone tells you to do § Pros:

§ Easier to make money § Easier to gain funding & support § A lot of examples of people who have

succeeded at this to learn from

§ Cons:

§ Can be slower to get your idea out there § Usually limited by the constraints of your

• wn team

Open Source Movement

§ This is what more people are starting to do § Pros:

§ Get your idea out very quickly § Other people can contribute freely to your ideas

and they can take off from there

§ Your idea can’t be “buried”

§ Cons:

§ Harder to make money § Harder to gain support outside the “open source

community” (which is growing to be really big)

§ For Me:

§ Plan to finish my mechanical engineering degree § Would like to start a different business while in school § I want to combine engineering + product design + entrepreneurship as a career path

§ For All of Us:

• 1. Doing something different
• 2. Inexperience leading to new opportunities/ideas
• 3. And the rest is up to you J

Any questions?