McMaster News

McMaster News EntrepreneurshipTeaching Innovation Why these McMaster students are starting with the ACE Future Innovators Bootcamp The program offers a practical introduction to commercialization and entrepreneurship for students with ideas at different stages. By Cheryl Crocker October 9, 2026 Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Students from four faculties are bringing different experiences to the ACE Future Innovators Bootcamp. Together, they show that entrepreneurship can begin anywhere. From left: Uday Kanwar & Sachin Gupta, Zhouma Yongci, Sofia Cruz, and Amelia Nanji. A spinal board that is difficult to maneuver in the water. A real estate agent’s frustration with repetitive research. A question about whether service robots can better respond to human emotion.  At McMaster University, these observations come from students studying science, health sciences, engineering and business. Their ideas are at different stages. Some are already working with a partner or a prototype; others are searching for a career path that feels like the right fit.  This fall, they are all taking the same next step: joining the ACE Future Innovators Bootcamp. Open to McMaster students from every faculty, the ACE Bootcamp offers a practical introduction to commercialization and entrepreneurship. Participants will learn how to identify and validate problems, understand customers and markets, consider the barriers that can shape an idea’s future, and communicate a compelling case for a solution.  A question from the pool For Amelia Nanji, a life sciences student with medical school in her sights and an experienced lifeguard, a question started forming during recertification.  Nanji was thinking about the spinal boards used to move someone with a suspected injury from the water. The equipment’s buoyancy can make it hard to control during a complex rescue—something she believes is particularly important to consider for younger lifeguards.  Rather than letting the concern go, she connected with Anna Korol in McMaster’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. Korol encouraged Nanji to explore the ACE Bootcamp before bringing a larger team together to develop the idea.  Nanji wants to learn how to assess whether the problem she has identified is one worth solving, what regulations might apply and how an idea moves beyond an early instinct.  “Health-care workers are going to recognize inefficiencies every day,” she says. “It’s important for us to have the tools and skills to address them and move the field forward.”  For Nanji, innovation training is a way to prepare for the kind of physician she hopes to become—one who can recognize problems up close and understand how to begin addressing them.  Discovery beyond the lab For Sofia Cruz, a biology and pharmacology student in the Faculty of Health Sciences, the ACE Bootcamp is part of a broader process of career discovery.  She entered McMaster with medicine in mind, too. But a visit to the emergency department with an injured fencing teammate helped her realize that clinical practice was not the future she wanted.  Conversations with McMaster alumni and professionals working in biotechnology, intellectual property and research commercialization pointed her toward technology transfer—the work of helping promising research find a path into the world.  “I’m interested in seeing how discoveries and research can translate into patient access and economic impact,” she says. “The ACE Bootcamp feels like a chance to learn more about that process and to figure out where I fit within it.”  Building beyond the code Software engineering students Uday Kanwar and Sachin Gupta already know the satisfaction of building something quickly.  The Brampton friends, former high school classmates and now roommates have taken part in hackathons, where teams can turn an idea into a prototype in a matter of hours. They’ve also learned through co-op experiences at Shopify and Microsoft that technology only becomes meaningful when it solves a real problem for the people using it.  “After the hackathon, where does it go from there?” Kanwar asks. “It doesn’t matter unless people are actually using it.”  The pair are exploring an AI-enabled tool that could help real estate agents bring together the fragmented information they need to do their work—from property histories and bylaws to zoning information and client details. Gupta’s father, a real estate agent, offered a close view of the problem.  As engineers, Kanwar and Gupta see systems, bottlenecks and opportunities to connect manual processes more efficiently.  They want to learn how to conduct structured interviews, validate whether a pain point is real, understand the market and refine a minimum viable product. Their goal is to make something that agents will actually choose to use.  They are also eager to leave the software-development bubble. Collaborating with students who bring expertise in design, communication, business and other fields, they say, will help them understand users more fully and communicate technical ideas in ways that resonate.  A people-first approach to technology MBA student Zhouma Yongci brings another perspective: that of an entrepreneur who has already built a business.  Originally from Tibet, she came to Canada to study international hotel management and build a career in hospitality. During the pandemic, after being laid off, she launched a wellness clinic offering services such as acupuncture, massage and counselling. The experience gave her a first taste of entrepreneurship—and a desire to pursue her MBA at the DeGroote School of Business.  Now she is exploring EQ Robotics, an idea for software that could help service robots better recognize and respond to human emotions. In hospitality, she explains, employees are trained to read a customer’s cues and adapt: to notice frustration, build trust and respond to what a person needs in the moment.  “When robots come into the service industry, there’s still a gap,” she says.  Her MBA is giving her a foundation in finance, marketing and business strategy. The ACE Bootcamp, she hopes, will help her validate a more complex, early-stage idea and identify what she does not yet know before pursuing future accelerator opportunities.  Because she is not an engineer, Yongci is especially looking forward to learning alongside technically trained students. Their questions about feasibility and product development will help her see the venture more holistically. In return, she brings a people-first perspective shaped by years of working directly with customers.  A place to begin The students’ ideas are different. So are their starting points. What connects them is a willingness to be curious before they are certain.  The ACE Future Innovators Bootcamp is designed for that moment. Students and researchers do not need a finished business plan, a team or a fully formed startup to take part. They need an interest in understanding problems, learning practical tools and seeing what can happen when different disciplines work together.  Registration is open and spaces are still available for the ACE Future Innovators Bootcamp. The program begins October 27. Learn more and register.  Related News Leading journal publishes lab tech’s undergrad experiment Daniel FitzGreen spent eight years turning Einstein’s calculation for gravitational lensing - a rare cosmic phenomenon - into a first-of-its-kind undergraduate physics experiment. October 6, 2026 Turning ideas into impact: McMaster entrepreneurs drive economic growth and job creation The Made at Mac annual report showcases the growing economic impact of the university's entrepreneurship ecosystem. October 5, 2026 Lauren Fink’s research reveals what captures our attention. Can it also capture a market? Fink has developed a portable technology that can synchronize and analyze eye-tracking data from groups of people at once. October 1, 2026