Entrepreneurship
This year QGEM was fortunate to be a part of the Queen’s Innovation Centre Summer Initiative Program (QICSI), which is a 17-week program hosted by the Dunin-Deshpande Queen’s Innovation Centre. This summer internship program provides teams of Queen’s students from all different fields with a diverse range of resources and entrepreneurial training to pursue their own startup companies. Through this opportunity, the QGEM team was able to participate in the QICSI Bootcamp, which consisted of a two-week intensive segment with full time classes taught by Commerce and Engineering professors, seasoned entrepreneurs, and business experts to provide the necessary knowledge and training to start our own business.
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/4/41/T--Queens_Canada--QICSI2018.jpg)
Kevin Chen
CEO, Hyasynth Bio
![](https://static.igem.org/mediawiki/2018/8/89/T--Queens_Canada--KevinChen.jpeg)
We met with Queen's Canada 2012 alumnus and the CEO of Hyansynth Bio, Kevin Chen. Hyansynth Bio uses a yeast-based system to produce cannabinoids. We spoke to Kevin about the challenges of leading a biotechnology start-up, fund raising, and protecting intellectual property.