A weekly brief for women founders on the funding, ideas, opportunities, trends and conversations shaping the Canadian entrepreneurship landscape.
It will be brief.
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💰Grants Funding:
- OTF’s Sector Grant will open this September to strengthen the resilience and capacity of not for profits in Ontario.
- Does your not for profit help people navigate disability funding and benefits? Check out this CFP here. When it comes to disability benefits, many families are still disconnected or have trouble understanding what is available to them. This is a great CFP.
- This is a grant and prizes by Telus for businesses. It’s open for small businesses generating revenue. Deadline is September 2.
- CIBC+WECK is partnering on a business competition for a “share of $45,000 CA in total prizes and connect with resources to help you grow”. I’m not sure how much direct funding there actually is, apply by August 31.
- Another prize funding opportunity, this time it’s for moms to pitch their business “The mother of all pitches“. It’s non-dilutive funding and business services, so I would read between those lines.
💸Funding Beyond Grants
It’s awesome that there is so much prize money to apply to for women founders. But part of me wonders, is there a way to support women founders without being gimmicky? How are these prizes helping women actually build successful businesses, or are they part of a passing trend?
I’d advise women founders to look at these announcements closely and read between the lines. We put so much effort into these applications, writing out our stories, crafting our narratives, and sharing business details into the ether, only for many of them to go nowhere. There definitely needs to be some due diligence on our end to make sure we know what we’re applying for, because many of these organizations and companies aren’t actually offering cash. Instead, they’re offering services through partnerships and sales.
🤖What’s happening in AI & Tech?
AI is shaping not only the labour market and entrepreneurship as we know it. This recent report from EY shows the different ways that AI can be used for good to support women founders and bridging the skills gap.
My recommendation to founders, keep writing from scratch. AI can help with so much, including research, editing, proofreading, fact checking, but relying on AI to write for you is relying on it to think for you. Don’t fake it till you make it.
With AI starting to sound more and more like humans, or humans starting to sound more and more like AI, we will see that these tools will only play out inequities in the AI space.
People are being blamed for AI slop, but where does the onus lie when it comes to social media platforms encouraging and actively promoting its distribution, I’m looking at you Linkedin.
📰In the News
Is your business impacted by tariffs at all? Here is an initiative through FedDev in response to trade pressures happening with the US. Check if you’re eligible here.
📣 Women Founders Get Seen
Meet Añurika Onyenso, founder of ECHFORM. Añurika joined Canada Innovates this summer, and will be part of the Women Founders cohort this fall.
Hi Añurika! it’s nice to meet you. What is ECHOFORM and why did you start it?
ECHOFORM is a youth civic storytelling ecosystem that connects lived experience, creativity, data, and public dialogue to strengthen social justice outcomes.
I started ECHOFORM because I kept seeing young people with so much to say about the issues shaping their lives, but not always having spaces where their perspectives were taken seriously.
I wanted to create a platform that makes civic engagement feel more creative, accessible, and rooted in young people’s lived experiences. ECHOFORM is really about turning stories into conversations, and conversations into action.
Can you tell us a bit about your career background? What brought you here?
I have a background in youth-led policy and advocacy initiatives at local and national levels, supporting research, consultation, and knowledge mobilization through organizations such as the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights.
Check out ECHOFORM here and connect with Añurika on LinkedIn.
🤝Ecosystem Brief This article talks about “hill-climbing” being a new catch phrase used by Silicon Valley tech bros, and we’ll likely start to see it everywhere in 3 2 1. It reminds me of those LinkedIn influencers who write 20 one-line paragraph posts talking about waking up at 4 am? So many hills to climb, all the time. I wonder though, do we always need to be climbing? Also, not many of us have access, networks, resources and room to keep climbing those hills. And that’s likely because we don’t have the same starting point.
💡My Brief Do you have a short attention span? I found some of the tips in this article very helpful to practice.
Let’s talk about product defensibility for a second. What does building a defensible product mean to you? I’m starting to have some conversations with investors, and one of the things that stands out is their focus, rightfully so, on product defensibility, and whether others can duplicate what you’re building.
In the age of AI, the cost of building software is getting lower, features that once were defensible aren’t defensible for very long. What needs to be added to the conversation around product defensibility is the system built around the product, your insight as the founder, years of accumulated data, partnerships, networks, research, a deep understanding of the problem. All these elements shape the product you’re building.
Do you have anything you’d like to share that’s beneficial for women founders? Get in touch either here on LinkedIn or connect with me over email at rusul@canadainnovates.org
Inclusive Entrepreneurship 