Meet the Team
Singularly Qualified Expertise
The Company


Nic Boileau, CEO
University of Ottawa
Nicole Rice, VP R&D Lead



Sahil Garg, Electrochemical Engineering Specialist
Sahil is an engineering specialist with a background in sensor research. Most recently, he held a position at Healthsign, a startup which focused on the development of IoT-enabled non-invasive health monitoring devices. He has significant experience in R&D development, and enjoys creative approaches to problem solving and process optimization.
Jacob Watkins, Senior Scientist



Pankaj Bhanderi, Software Developer
Pankaj’s interest in multiple engineering disciplines as well as programming made him a perfect fit for Ekidna. He began his career as co-founder and project engineer for Ahrnik Tech Solutions. As project engineer, he worked on multiple projects with a focus on microcontrollers in Embedded C and desktop applications. After moving to Canada, he was a technician with Abbott Point of Care for four and a half years, and then moved to a software developer role at The Bliss Group, where he worked for two years in both front and back-end development. Pankaj’s tech stack includes C, C#, Java, Python, HTML/HTML5, CSS/CSS3, XML, JavaScript, JQuery and SQL/MySQL/PostgresSQL.
Advisors

Tom Shipley, Entrepreneur,
Cannabis Technology Executive
BSc Biopharmaceuticals-Genomics, University of Ottawa

Sam Chandola, Serial Entrepreneur and Investor
BA English, Delhi University; BA Philology Literature and Philosophy, Freie Universität Berlin; Yellow Accelerator Program Alumnus
Building on his 10+ years as a startup operator, Sam founded First Fund with the aim of promoting the growth of new startups by becoming the first investor for new founders. He has invested in over 25 technology startups, helping create hundreds of jobs in the process. Sam is a recipient of the 2014 BC Business Top 30 under 30 award, the RBC Top 75 Canadian Immigrant award, and the 2017 TMX Canada’s Next 150 award. In 2021, he was also named as one of the Top 24 people of Asian Descent to Watch by the Vancouver Economic Commission.
He routinely talks about entrepreneurship at events and universities such as Pecha Kucha Nights, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and the Center for Digital Media. He was also the founder of Covid Helper, a non-commercial initiative to help those most affected by the COVID-19 crisis.

Julia Elvidge, Entrepreneur and Investor
BASc, BSc Engineering, University of Waterloo

Avinash Persaud, Technology Executive
Engineering Science, University of Toronto

Katie Kopansky, Go-to-Market and Growth Strategist
BA Economics, Queen’s University

Adam Shuhendler, Ekidna Co-Founder, Associate Professor & Canada Research
Chair (Tier 2) in Chemical Biology at University Of Ottawa PhD Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Toronto

Benoît H. Lessard, Ekidna Co-Founder, Associate Professor & Tier 2 Canada Research Chair at the University of Ottawa
PhD Engineering, Chemical Engineering-Polymer Science, McGill University

Cory Harris, Ekidna Co-Founder, Associate Professor, Departments of Biology, Chemistry, and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Ottawa
PhD Biology, University of Ottawa
Ekidna has also been privileged to have various “ghost boards” of advisors through programs such as MakerLaunch and ScaleUp Garage.
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