Announcing the 2018 Futurpreneur Canada Award Winners

Entrepreneur of the Year

Israa Hilles, Escritoire Coworking Spaces

Israa Hilles is the owner and founder of Escritoire Coworking Space Inc, a unique shared workspace in Montreal where modern professionals can work productively—right in their local communities. New to Canada, Israa developed Escritoire with a focus on the genuine passion of members for their neighbours and neighbourhoods, working to foster rather than force a sense of community and connection.

Grit Award

Harman Kaur & Gabrielle Zoppa, Spa Botanica

Harman went into business with $0 in her personal and business accounts, relying on food banks to feed herself and her children. She overcame struggles and sacrifices to launch and grow Spa Botanica with her business partner, Gabrielle. Spa Botanica is a full service day spa with an Ayurvedic influence specializing in custom-made skincare using pure ingredients such as turmeric, Multani clay, sandalwood, rose petals, coconut, cucumber and more.

Growing Strong Award

Armen Bakirtzian, Intellijoint Surgical

Intellijoint’s flagship product, Intellijoint HIP®, provides surgeons with real-time, intra-operative measurements to ensure accurate size selection, positioning, and alignment of orthopaedic implants during total hip replacements. In just two years of commercialization, Intellijoint HIP has been used to more accurately reconstruct over 6,500 total hip replacements. With the adoption rate of Intellijoint HIP growing rapidly, Intellijoint Surgical knew though that it needed to grow beyond its established markets. In 2017, Intellijoint expanded into the Australian and New Zealand markets with its newly earned CE Mark, and in September 2018 entered the European Union market.

Disruption Award

Gabriel Laliberté, Objectif Motivation Gym

Driven by a passion to leave a healthy legacy throughout his community in the south shore of Quebec City, Gabriel launched Objectif Motivation Gym to provide a customized training service that would guide his clients in achieving their objectives and modifying life habits considered harmful.

Gabriel aims to broaden his horizons in the medium term with an additional two to three employees, offering a home service and web programs, and developing partnerships with complementary people and companies.

The Vivian Prokop Mirchandani Mentorship Award

Juliana MacEwen, Precision Digital

Starting a business can feel very lonely at times, unless you have people that you can talk to who understand what you are going through. Juliana MacEwen realizes this and tries to lend a hand whenever she can to people who are taking the leap of faith to start their own business.

Juliana was nominated for going above and beyond her mentoring role, supporting her mentees in a range of ways, from hiring new employees to providing guidance on business decisions such as new ideas or changes in direction.

Most importantly, Juliana has helped her mentees to become more confident with themselves as women in business, inspiring and empowering those around her.