What Happens When Academic Discipline Cross Wires?

"Traditional university education is fairly siloed," says Sarah Lubik, SFU's director of entrepreneurship, of the cross-faculty program. "Increasingly education institutions are realizing we don't solve important problems in silos. We solve them by getting together, putting biologists with technologists or engineers."

That holds true for Bahrami and Bagheri, who learned to get out of the lab and talk to potential investors. "We're technical guys," Bagheri says. "We don't always see the business and financial parameters like they do. They were asking questions that I hadn't heard before."

As a result of the program, he notes, they've begun to make a number of connections, including potential investors, Coast Capital Savings, and even the president of SFU.

"They've all been very interested. We're getting to know all these business and financial guys, and that's all out of Venture Connection."

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