KITCHENER, ON – September 24, 2021 – Communitech is pleased to announce the 2021 cohort of founders into its Fierce Founders Bootcamp – a fast-paced business and personal growth program for earlier stage companies – as it celebrates a milestone of the tenth cohort of supporting women and/or non-binary founders as they build their technology-focused businesses. 

 

The Fierce Founders Bootcamp runs for six weeks and aims to get more women-identifying and/or nonbinary to think bigger about their market and idea, and to see more of these founders build the next generation of leading Canadian tech companies.

 

“Since the inception of the Fierce Founders Bootcamp in 2016, we hope to see more women build the unicorns of Canada. If we help more women founders start on the right foot, help validate their ideas and help to think bigger, then we should see more women at the helm of successful businesses in years to come,” said Lisa Cashmore, Vice President, Start and Scale Programs at Communitech. 

 

Participants in the 2021 Communitech Fierce Founders Bootcamp include: 

 

- Martha Fedorak, Habitly (Kitchener, ON)

- Sarah Jane Flynn, Tourlitix Inc. (Toronto, ON)

- Susan So, FirstScreen (Kitchener, ON)

- Nino Melikidze, VisaWire (Toronto, ON)

- Tali Remennik, Granularity (Toronto, ON)

- Deinye Eporwei, Solooble Financial Inc. (Nipean, ON)

- Kara LeBlanc, Med Reddie (Waterloo, ON)

- Stefanie Bruinsma, Miss Mechanic (Kitchener, ON)

- Tendai Nzuma, Kunye Financial Inc. (Toronto, ON)

- Elaine Kapogines, Grafsource (Cambridge, ON)

- Assel Beglinova, Paperstack (North York, ON)

- Elizabeth Azuya, Fabbulist (Kitchener, ON)

 

Founders participating in the Fierce Founders Bootcamp will participate in sessions with mentors and receive hands-on coaching to help them grow their businesses. 

 

“I applied to the Fierce Founders Bootcamp to grow my support system with woman-identifying and/or non-binary entrepreneurs and to network with advisors and service providers,” said Kara LeBlanc, founder, Med Reddie. “It’s a remarkable opportunity for mentoring, networking, and growth alongside my peers within the fastest-growing tech ecosystem in Canada.”

 

"As an immigrant in tech, I consider it my responsibility to use my unique background to help others navigate the immigration process and take advantage of life-changing opportunities in leading countries,” said Nino Melikidze, founder, VisaWire. “I realized how invaluable it would be to be a part of a tight-knit community of like-minded people that are all passionate about taking their business to the next level."

 

“The Fierce Founders Bootcamp offers me a unique opportunity to network with and learn from other female business owners at different stages of their entrepreneurial journey,” said Elizabeth Azuya, founder, Fabbulist. “My startup is at a stage where the expertise of the coaches in the program could prove very useful, specifically to provide insight into changing user behaviour and implementing it into our onboarding process for beauty stylists. I look forward to the one-on-one sessions the most.”

 

The Fierce Founders bootcamp is supported by BDC, BMO, Google for Startups, and FedDev Ontario. In addition to the Fierce Founders Bootcamp, Communitech supports women-led businesses through the Fierce Founders series of programs. For more information about Communitech Fierce Founders Bootcamp and other Fierce Founders programs, please visit our website.

 

About Communitech

Communitech was founded in 1997 by a group of entrepreneurs committed to making Waterloo Region a global innovation leader. At the time it was a wild idea, but somehow this community managed to pull it off. Today, Communitech is a public-private innovation hub that supports a community of more than 1,600 companies — from startups to scale-ups to large global players. Communitech helps tech companies start, grow and succeed in three distinct ways.

- Communitech is a place – the centre of gravity for entrepreneurs and innovators. A clubhouse for building cool tech and great companies.

- Communitech delivers programs – helping companies at all stages with access to capital, customers and talent. We are here to help them grow and innovate.

- Communitech partners in building a world-leading ecosystem – making sure we have all the ingredients (and the brand) to help companies go from a small startup to a global giant.

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For media inquiries, please contact: 

 

Samantha Clark

Public Relations Manager, Communitech

samantha.clark@communitech.ca

519-221-3466