Mount Royal University Student Named Calgary's EO Student Entrepreneur of the Year for the 6th Consecutive Year

Ryan Doel; Student Founder, Computing Student and Calgary's EO Student Entrepreneur of the Year

By Emily Knight

If you have been living in the entrepreneurship world for a while, you are likely very familiar with the tone of the average pitch competition. It goes something like this, 'the big problem, how we solve it, the secret sauce, the business model, and so on'... you know the drill.

The Entrepreneur Organization's Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) breaks that mold and offers a fresh take of the student pitch completion. Instead of judges focusing on solely the business's viability, the spotlight is turned back onto the student pitching the idea. Judging criteria look for evidence of the individual's resilience to failure, openness to learning new skills, ability to identify and pursue new opportunities, and ability to successfully juggle the complex demands that come with being a student and budding entrepreneur.

Last week, on Thursday, November 7th, 2019, Mount Royal University hosted the 2019 Calgary Regional GSEA Competition and heard from five student founders. Representing Mount Royal was Arielle Fitgerald, a Health, Community, and Education student and Co-Founder of Mooch; Riley George, Computer Information Systems Student and Founder of Yeti Minature; and Ryan Doel, Computer Information Systems Student and Founder of Paintabbotics.

We are proud to celebrate the winner of the Calgary competition, Ryan Doel, and Mount Royal students holding this title now for six consecutive years!

Along with sharing the compelling business that he is currently working on, Ryan shared his personal life journey. Although that story is his to share, suffice to say that none of his accomplishments have come without extraordinary effort. He received $3,500 toward his project as well as a trip to Toronto in January to compete at the National GSEA event.

Ryan's business is a robotic solution to the toxic paint environment in automotive body shops. He has first-hand experience in the industry and has integrated this experience with his computing education gained here at Mount Royal to take on what he estimates is over a $2 billion market.

Along with Ryan's win, we are proud to celebrate Arielle placing third and Riley telling his unique and compelling story. We also congratulate the two students from the University of Calgary, Kathy Bui, Co-Founder of CareFind Ltd. and Hailey Lu, Founder of JAMBO Apparel.