Looking to develop the skills you need to become an innovator and leader?
Curiosity to Creation is a workshop series that centres on cultivating the key soft skills essential for entrepreneurs, whether you're just starting out or already building a venture.
The series is designed to strengthen your personal and interpersonal capacities, from communication to collaboration and innovation, giving you the tools to succeed regardless of your path. Rather than immediate startup action, we'll delve into the concrete skills you need to innovate, lead, and grow. Join us to get inspired and explore entrepreneurship.
Cultivating Risk-Taking Resilience
A Workshop with Amir Alam
DATE: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
TIME: 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
LOCATION: Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus, 108 College St., 2nd Floor, W240
REGISTER FOR CULTIVATING RISK-TAKING RESILIENCE
This workshop is the second session of the six-part series, designed to help you cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset. Join us and discover the power of risk-taking and resilience—two key qualities that drive success in entrepreneurship and career development.
Whether you're looking to kick off your entrepreneurship journey or want to navigate challenges with confidence, the lessons you’ll learn here are highly transferable in different contexts. This workshop will empower you to confidently navigate uncertainty, build resilience, and thrive in both your personal and professional life.
Through this interactive workshop facilitated by Amir Alam, one of the Venture Mentoring Service (VMS) mentors and an entrepreneur, you will have the opportunity to:
- Reflect on your own risk tolerance and resilience levels through experience sharing;
- Develop decision-making strategies to take risks; and
- Develop resilience strategies to deal with setbacks and uncertainty.
Amir Alam
Amir Alam is a multidisciplinary U of T alum with work spanning brain-tumour research, startups, film/real-time tech, and the music industry. At SickKids and UHN, he co-authored studies in Nature Communications and Nature Genetics. He founded Shoe Laundry, an eco-minded shoe-care brand, and later worked in virtual production and AI. He has toured and worked in the studio as a producer/dj. A mentor with U of T’s Venture Mentoring Service, he teaches students to convert uncertainty into small, reversible experiments—the practice that anchors his perspective on resilience and adaptability.
Identifying Problems Worth Solving
A Workshop with Victor Brunka
DATE: Tuesday, November 18, 2025
TIME: 4:00 PM – 6:00 PM
LOCATION: Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus, 108 College St., 7th Floor, W762
REGISTER FOR IDENTIFYING PROBLEMS WORTH SOLVING
Join us and discover how ordinary challenges can spark extraordinary business ideas!
Whether you are exploring entrepreneurship as a possible pathway or refining your next venture idea, this workshop will empower you to see the world through an entrepreneurial lens. Through real-world examples and discussions, you will get to sharpen your ability to spot real-world problems or unmet needs, and transform them into a meaningful entrepreneurial opportunity.
By participating in this interactive workshop facilitated by Victor Brunka, one of the Venture Mentoring Service (VMS) mentors, you will have the opportunity to:
- Observe and uncover real-world problems or unmet needs through an entrepreneurial lens;
- Define problem statements by applying user-centred thinking and journey mapping; and
- Assess the relevance and potential impact of identified problems by considering various factors.
This workshop is the third session of the six-part series, designed to help you cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset.
Victor Brunka
Victor Brunka (BA’71) is a mentor with the University of Toronto's Health Innovation Hub (H2i) and Venture Mentoring Service (VMS) for thirteen startup companies. Each mentor provides an objective overview of the founder's ideas and progress, and continually reviews the corporate strategy and action plans.
In 1996, Victor joined the management team of Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Inc. (AIM) to introduce early AI/NLP prototypes to cancer registries across North America. By constantly initiating new AI developments in this area, AIM became the dominant player in the cancer registry field. The National Cancer Institute uses their AI/NLP software to process 45% of the cancer diagnoses in the United States each year, securely collecting and interpreting over 32,000,000 cancer cases from 571 hospitals without human intervention.
Victor’s experience includes prior roles with Procter and Gamble, Baxter Laboratories and Dun & Bradstreet, and a Partnership in Silico Computer Systems.
More sessions coming in 2026!
Founders Come in All Forms
Fireside Chat with Dr. Morgan Barense & Wayne Pommen
DATE: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
TIME: 4:30 PM – 7:00 PM
LOCATION: Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus, 108 College St., 7th Floor, Winter Garden
REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSEDSESSION AGENDA:
- 4:30 PM - 4:45 PM: Registration and Light Refreshments
- 4:45 PM - 5:00 PM: Introduction to CfE
- 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM: Fireside Chat with Dr. Morgan Barense and Wayne Pommen
- 6:00 PM - 6:30 PM: Networking and Light Refreshments; Optional: CfE Tour Group #1
- 6:30 PM - 7:00 PM: Networking and Light Refreshments; Optional: CfE Tour Group #2
The first of our six-part series, this inspiring session is all about showing that there’s no one “right” path to becoming a founder.
Co-hosted with Innovation on Board at U of T, join us for an insightful session that challenges the conventional wisdom of what it takes to be a successful founder. This event, a discussion with two remarkable founders, Dr. Morgan Barense and Wayne Pommen, will dismantle the myth of the "perfect" entrepreneurial path.
The session will feature a Q&A with our speakers. Following the discussion, there will be time for networking, and optional tours of the Centre for Entrepreneurship (located on the 6th floor) will be offered.
Light refreshments will be served.
Dr. Morgan Barense
Dr. Morgan Barense is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto and holds a Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience. Her research focuses on how memory functions across the lifespan, particularly in the context of aging and neurological disease. In addition to her academic work, Morgan is the co-founder and CEO of HippoCamera, an app grounded in decades of research on memory consolidation that helps users record and revisit meaningful daily experiences. Designed to support brain health and memory retention in aging populations, HippoCamera exemplifies how fundamental science can be translated into tools with real-world impact — a perspective that speaks directly to the role of research-driven innovation.
Wayne Pommen
Wayne Pommen is a leader in the fintech sector and currently serves as Chief Revenue Officer at Affirm, where he oversees global commercial operations, including sales, marketing, partnerships, and communications. Prior to this, he was the CEO of PayBright, one of Canada’s first and most successful buy-now-pay-later platforms. Under his leadership, PayBright grew from a five-person startup to a 200-person company, partnering with major retailers such as Apple, Samsung, and Hudson’s Bay. The company was named Canada’s Fintech Company of the Year in 2019 and was acquired by Affirm in 2021. Wayne brings deep experience in building and scaling ventures, offering insights into the challenges of early-stage growth, strategic leadership, and navigating acquisition — all critical aspects of innovation in practice.