For our last episode before the Christmas break, we invite student entrepreneurs Lisa Marie Swanepoel and Julia St. Amand to talk about how they’re starting their own businesses while enrolled as full-time students.

Lisa-Marie was born in South Africa and moved to Canada at the age of 10. Her life-long passion for health and well-being has led her to pursue education in public health. She graduated with a Bachelor’s in Public Health from the University of Lethbridge in 2016 and is currently in the final stages of completing her Master of Science in Health Sciences. Lisa-Marie’s entrepreneurship journey started in 2018 with a team of 4. She took part in Craig Elias’s 150 Start-up event where she received an award for her team’s business idea. She has also been awarded the Alberta Innovates seed award. Lisa-Marie and her team are now in the process of preparing to launch their business called Needly. Needly is an app that aims to reduce inefficiencies with needle collection in communities and to keep cities safe.

Julia is an undergraduate student in the dual degree Kinesiology and Business program at the University of Calgary, with a passion for human physiology and social entrepreneurship. She first got involved in entrepreneurship at a healthcare hackathon called Innovation 4 health while working on software to predict bottlenecks in emergency departments.   She worked as a pharmacy assistant, contract analyst, and in software sourcing before leaving her position to pursue her business, RetinaLogik, full time.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Needly: https://www.needly.ca/

RetinaLogik: https://www.retinalogik.com/

Innovation for Health: https://www.innovation4health.com/

Hackathon: https://www.hackathon.com/event/student-startup-success-43333924936

150 Startups: https://150startups.com/

HackIT: https://www.alberta.ca/hackit-ab-innovation-hackathon.aspx

University of Calgary: https://www.ucalgary.ca/

University of Lethbridge: https://www.ulethbridge.ca/welcome-university-lethbridge

World’s Challenge Challege: https://www.ucalgary.ca/international/study-abroad/worlds-challenge-challenge

Hunter Hub: https://www.ucalgary.ca/hunter-hub

League of Innovators: https://www.theleagueofinnovators.org/

Campus Alberta Neuroscience: https://www.albertaneuro.ca/

Mitacs Programs for Student Entrepreneur: https://www.mitacs.ca/en