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L a u r a M o e
co - Founder and cMo, cl ad
innoVations ltd.
age: 23
the story: Many young people find them-
selves pondering their future while travelling
overseas. Not many, however, wind up reverse
engineering a smoke detector in a hotel room
in Morocco—and potentially coming up with
the next big thing in wearable technology.
That's exactly how Port Coquitlam native
Laura Moe and friend Kevin Hart built their
first prototype for Tzoa: a wearable air quality
sensor that measures pollution and UV rays
and transmits the readings to a smartphone
app via Bluetooth. "Air pollution is the number
one daily health risk, but it's not monitored
at all on a personal level," says Moe, a former
nurse who says she was surprised to find her
passion in consumer electronics.
Markers oF success: Tzoa—the inau-
gural offering from Moe and Hart's company,
Clad Innovations—is still a year or more away
from coming to market, but public health
departments at
UBC and Yale University have
expressed interest in testing the product. Tzoa
was also on display at the Consumer Electron-
ics Show in January, and Moe is part of the
first cohort of the Next Big Thing Foundation's
entrepreneur accelerator program led by
Hootsuite founder Ryan Holmes and branding
expert Meredith Powell.
—J.B.
the Motivational
quote that gets
Me going
"A good friend once
told me: 'If you have
an idea, don't just
keep it as an idea.
Pursue it. Bring it
to reality. Only then
will you find out if it's
worth pursuing'"
from left:
Laura Moe,
Eugene Suyu,
Adrian Duke
Best adVice i'Ve eVer receiVed
"When I asked my 94-year-old grandma
to sum up life's best advice, she told me
'never be afraid to catch the ball.' I think
that's spot on with all life decisions—career,
love, personal growth; you've got to want
it more than you are afraid of it, and that's
how you know it's worth it"
46 BCBusiness april 2015
