Are you interested in exploring entrepreneurship? Opus seeks to help aspiring startup founders transform their ideas into real-life solutions.

Many USask students across all majors dream of owning and operating a business. At a recent seminar I attended, even though the speakers were employed at different companies and some lacked entrepreneurial experience, many people—students and faculty alike—had questions about starting their own business venture.

At USask, we’re very fortunate to have access to our own startup incubator to aid in these concerns: Opus. 

Opus was established in 2022 out of Innovation Mobilization and Partnerships, a unit of the USask Office of the Vice-President Research, when the university adopted a new approach to intellectual property that embraces inventor choice. The organization provides free entrepreneurship training and exposes aspiring startup founders to a network of professionals and experts to teach students, staff, and faculty how to build and maintain a business. 

The first cohort had 12 teams working on AgTech, BioTech, AI, MedTech, and Advanced manufacturing technologies from various colleges across campus.  These deep-tech ventures typically need more time to develop than traditional digital startups because they require more research.  “Opus fills a gap in our local ecosystem by meeting the unique needs of deep tech founders,” says Opus Manager, Jenelyn Santos Ong, who launched the first cohort.  “As a pre-accelerator program, early-stage founders get to build their business acumen in an environment that allows them to validate, experiment, fail, and discover all within the safer university setting.”

Opus currently offers three programs depending on the type and stage of the business: Idea2Explore, Innovate2Build, and Impact2Market. If you have a business idea, the first level of programming, Idea2Explore (i2Explore), focuses on honing the idea and guiding you through the next steps to making it a reality. This program is open to any type of business and offers further opportunities through events, workshops, and networking, where participants learn about the different supports available to help validate their ideas. 

The second level, Innovate2Build (i2Build), is an 8-month cohort program that provides USask innovators with deep-tech invention access to “entrepreneurial programming, infrastructure, and a network of experts to help build successful ventures,” according to Opus. The third program, Impact2Market (i2Market), is intended for graduates of i2Build and provides further training, funding, and infrastructure to support business goals. 

“We want students, staff and faculty to view entrepreneurship as a valid, viable career path, and we are here to help support that,” said Natasha Werbicki, program lead of the i2Explore program. “Many students are in pursuit of the job at the end of the degree, but you can create your own job, by solving your own or someone else’s problems. I would love to see this shift across USask—people pursuing their ideas and creating their own career path.” 

In the three cohorts they’ve had, Opus has seen many companies come through and numerous success stories emerge. 

Dr. Christopher Eskiw (PhD) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Food and Bioproduct Sciences at USask. Through Opus, Dr. Eskiw founded IntelliYeast Laboratories, an agriculture biotechnology startup that produces liquid yeast optimized for different brewing purposes. In just under three years since its inception, IntelliYeast Laboratories has already hired employees and is supplying multiple customers with its high-quality product.

Another success story is PathoScan Technologies, a molecular diagnostics startup co-founded by Tayab Soomro, M.Sc.,  and Ethan Done. Soomro, the CEO of PathoScan, graduated with his B.Sc. in Bioinformatics from USask and M.Sc. from Dalhousie University. Done, the Chief Scientific Lead, is in his final year of a B.Sc. Honours in Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology at USask, and is expecting to graduate in June before starting a Master’s degree later this year. PathoScan Technologies manufactures and distributes a lab-grade diagnostic device that detects diseases in crops. Recently, the company won the Startup TNT Pitch Night and has secured thousands of dollars in funding to support its business goals.

Werbicki explained that while many people are fit for entrepreneurship, there are roadblocks that prevent them from pursuing their ideas “They have the right mindset and would love to pursue that path, but they don’t know how to get there. Having the ability to offer that service for students for free is special,” she said. “We want all students across campus to know that we exist and that the supports are in place.”

Opus hosts many events year-round to bring the entrepreneurship community together. “It’s a lot of like-minded people coming together. It’s fun networking, interesting conversations, and everyone’s just looking to solve problems and make connections,” said Werbicki. She added that being in a space where the community comes together to solve some of society’s most pressing problems has been an experience she is grateful for. 

Werbicki emphasized that a key benefit of these events for those looking to start their own business is the opportunity to connect not only with industry professionals, but also with peers in different fields. She explained that, for instance, Edwards students might have an idea for a product but require an engineering student to make it come to life, while the engineering student might need that business experience. “That’s what I’m hoping to see out of Opus: a really strong network of people who are driven to solve problems and share the knowledge,” said Werbicki. Recent events hosted by Opus were the “Opus Innovation Expo” to showcase the work done by the 2024 i2Build cohort, “Opus Con: Unleashing AI,” and “The Yes Factor: Secrets to Building a Fundable Startup” with guest speaker Maninder Dhaliwal.

Opus will host several more events this year. Earlier this month, Opus, along with Trackpoint AI hosted Tech Hour, featuring USask alum Heather Koshinsky on “The Entrepreneurial Checklist,” which brought together industry professionals, students, and those interested in tech. In the coming weeks, Opus will partner with SIIT to launch the first-ever mâmawihisicikewin Community Innovation Challenge, an exciting 2-day idea hackathon that connects Indigenous knowledge with deep tech to create innovative solutions that address significant community issues.

Furthermore, the next date for Opus Con is June 10, a Comic-Con-style event, where you bring your questions to the panel and take advantage of numerous networking opportunities. Later, in November 2025, Opus will host its annual Innovation Expo to showcase the 2025 i2Build founders and their technologies.

For anyone interested in learning more about founding their own startup with the help of Opus, visit their website here for contact information and to join their newsletter, where you’ll get more information on local and provincial opportunities for entrepreneurship, workshops, and more.