Meet This University's Entrepreneur of the Year and His Successful Startup
Matias Marquez is Simon Fraser University's Entrepreneur of the Year for 2011.
SFU's fourth annual award honoured Matias for founding Buyatab.com, a company that provides digital gift card processing software that can be embedded in websites. The internet startup already has clients across North America, including Milestones and Boston Pizza.
Buyatab was founded in late 2009 by Matias Marquez, then a third-year business student at SFU, and BCIT student Ross St. George.
Arvand Alviri, whose startup VenueWize launches next week, earned runner-up honours. VenueWize is a web and mobile app for event organizers who want real-time metrics on the performance of their events.
Other notable entrepreneurs to come from SFU include Arash Afrooze, who co-founded HiretheWorld, which was recognized by Profit Magazine as one of Canada’s top 20 young entrepreneurs, and Milun Tesovic, a Global Student Entrepreneur Champion, who recently sold his startup MetroLyrics to CBS for millions.
