AI2Market
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AI2Market, a collaboration between Dal Innovates, Lab2Market, and ShiftKey Labs, mirrors the nationally recognized Lab2Market entrepreneurship program with a focus on training students in AI. It unfolds in three stages \u2013 Discover, Validate, and Launch \u2013 and is open to any postsecondary student in Atlantic Canada.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe recognized a need for students to have the opportunity to experiment with AI tools,\u201d says Emily Fenton, manager of ShiftKey Labs. \u201cIt\u2019s an incredible collaboration between Dal Innovates, Lab2Market, and ShiftKey Labs, with input from sector organizations such as Volta. We\u2019re excited to bring it to students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Through the program, students receive training in AI, entrepreneurship guidance, and access to a community of innovators.<\/p>\n
Starting up<\/p>\n
Sood is from New Delhi, India. He knew he wanted to study on the coast, which brought him to Dalhousie.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still go to the ocean almost every day. I love it.\u201d<\/p>\n
His interest in AI led him to take on various projects outside class.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt started as \u2018What\u2019s in your fridge?\u2019 where students could take a picture of their fridge and get a recipe,\u201d says Sood. After sharing it with a few thousand students and not getting paid, they realized they were approaching the project as project engineers instead of entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n
Vansh and his co-founder, Pankrit Jindal, started over, diving into customer discovery and building a business model. They discovered a new customer base and relaunched as Bean \u2013 a meal planning app for busy families.<\/p>\n
\u201cBean checks your pantry, suggests recipes, builds AI meal plans, and auto-generates the shopping list \u2014 so Sunday meal prep takes 10 minutes, not two hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/bean-app.jpg\")
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While the AI2Market project didn\u2019t exist yet, Sood was connected to ShiftKey Labs and had informal mentors throughout his journey.<\/p>\n
\u201cI consider anyone who I ask questions to as mentor \u2014 professors like Dr. Sampalli, Dr. Sampangi, Dr. Poitras, Dr. Abidi, and Dr. Blouin, Emily at ShiftKey Labs, founders in the Volta ecosystem,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m shameless about asking about the problems I\u2019m facing. If I\u2019m ashamed of my skills right now, how am I going to grow and learn?\u201d<\/p>\n
Now he gets to be a resource for other students and their ideas.<\/p>\n
A natural fit
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Sood was first connected to ShiftKey Labs in his first year. He started as a student ambassador, then student technology coordinator, and now coordinator for the AI2Market program.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith AI2Market Discover, the idea is for students to learn a few things in AI,\u00a0have or find an idea, and have fun building it. When they find the right business model, they move into the Validate program.\u201d<\/p>\n
While AI2Market is AI-driven, it\u2019s not coding. \u201cWe\u2019re using AI tools and learning about them to build companies,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Fenton describes Sood as passionate, talented, and ambitious. \u201cWe\u2019ve been so lucky to have him at ShiftKey Labs,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat\u2019s really rewarding, when I think about this suite of programs, is that Atlantic Canada\u2019s tech sector has been growing for a long time. If we can bring programs and opportunities to students, hopefully they will stay in Atlantic Canada and continue to build their projects here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Applications are now open<\/a> until September 15 for the first cohort of AI2Market Discover beginning in October.<\/p>\n Students, staff and faculty are also invited to participate in Dal Innovation Week<\/a> from September 19-26, featuring a Tech Startup Showcase<\/a> on September 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe didn\u2019t go the business route at first \u2014 but then realized we were doing it wrong.\u201d That\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[28,19944,158,61042],"class_list":{"0":"post-89014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-computer-science","10":"tag-entrepreneurship","11":"tag-student-life"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}