With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.
Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1512670
43 BC BU S I N E S S .C A J A N U A R Y 2 0 24 "WE'RE CREATING THE PERFECT DAY, EVERY single day," says Ishaan Kohli. That sounds like an exaggeration, but it's a literal analysis of SkyAcres' work: the Surrey-based agtech firm has made a vertical farming device that mimics an ideal growing environment for fruits and veggies. "From strawberries to bell peppers to herbs, we can grow everything you need for a well-balanced diet in any kind of underutilized space," says Kohli. SkyAcres launched in 2021 and began full-time operations in mid-2022, but the company has already made a serious impact on some of the province's most under-resourced communi- ties. Inspired by SkyAcres' chief strategy officer Zaffia Laplante (an Indigenous entrepreneur), Kohli fo- cused his pilot project on an Indig- enous community in Northern B.C. "We grew fresh fruits and vegetables inside of a grocery store," explains Kohli, "and we were able to reduce the cost of fresh produce by up to 76 percent." Working in agriculture wasn't in Kohli's ini- tial plan: he started his career in the medical technology industry and began developing a project that would deliver medicine to cancer patients using a mist. But as natural disaster struck, a natural solution followed. "The B.C. floods, heat waves and Arctic winds hap- pened, and suddenly it clicked for me—maybe instead of delivering medicine, I could use the same technology to deliver nutrients and wa- ter to the roots of plants," says Kohli. SkyAcres' tech suspends the plants inside a chamber that is full of mist and nutrients, allowing the plants to thrive while using minimal resources and minimal square footage. "We're not only lowering the cost of fresh food, but also improving the health and well- being of the community—because, tradition- ally, processed foods are the only affordable option," says Kohli. Things continue to look up at SkyAcres: the company recently pivoted to a new, franchise-like business model so that other folks can start vertical farms of their own. —A.H. VANESSA LO USED TO POKE A lot of patients as a UBCO student nurse at Burnaby Hospital. Like many other health-care providers, she would try once, twice, sometimes several times before she tapped into a viable vein. "There was one situation where a patient needed an anti- biotic medication that was timed, and his needle had slipped out," she tells BCBusiness. "We had less than an hour to get it back in or we'd have to restart his entire six weeks of antibiotics all over again... it took over 10 tries, four nurses and one doctor to be able to get that started." Difficult intravenous access remains a common issue in health care—one that hasn't been probed into enough. Current handheld finders have an over-detection problem, says Lo, because they reveal every vein, even unusable ones. That motivated the Vancouverite to start VanTech Medical with Rohith J K as a nursing student in 2022. As an entrepreneur, she's laser-focused on using AI and immersive technology to solve challenges in health care. "We've developed a wearable [device] that can quickly and accurately locate veins in the very first attempt," says Lo. The solution can be built into smart Ishaan Kohli FOUNDER AND CEO, SKYACRES Vanessa Lo CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, VANTECH MEDICAL glasses: put them on, look at an arm and see a map of the most optimal veins for insertion. The project began with a $10,000 Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Impact grant from UBCO. The duo then attracted a Mitacs grant, got VanTech into entrepreneurship@ UBC's Lab2Launch incubator and facilitated partnerships with both SFU and UBC. With Northern Health's oncol- ogy unit as its first pilot testing partner, VanTech is now prepar- ing for FDA approval. But even before the glasses enter the mar- ket, the startup is already working on a compassionate robot doll to address loneliness and isolation in the aging population. "I think the beating heart of VanTech is our passion for advancing health care through technology," says Lo. —R.R.