DeGroote student competes in entrepreneurship competition

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/taha_ahmed.jpg” caption=”DeGroote MBA student Ahmed Taha (right) and his brother, Ameer.”]

Sitting at your breakfast table in the morning staring at the side of the Cheerios box, have you ever wondered how they know that one cup of Cheerios has 22g of carbohydrates?

Nutrition facts tables are required by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration on almost all prepackaged foods. In order to meet the requirements and provide consumers with complete and accurate nutrition information, food companies spend large sums of money hiring highly skilled and expensive lab technicians to analyze the composition of their food products.

DeGroote MBA student Ahmed Taha, a pharmacology graduate, partnered with his brother, Ameer, a pharmacology PhD student at the University of Toronto, to develop an instrument to make this testing faster and easier.

For each product, lab technicians extract a sample, mix the sample with a chemical reagent to break it down, heat it, and then analyse it. Taha's device automates the extraction, reagent and heating procedures, increasing the speed and the accuracy of the testing process substantially. And it's applicable to drug and soil testing as well as food.

“One technician can process seven samples an hour, but with my instrument, you can do at least 100 samples an hour,” he explains. “Every lab does this process, but this invention by far beats any product out there.”

Taha's invention has vast potential for commercial labs which process millions of samples each year and hire hundreds of technicians. The promise of his invention was recognized at the Nicol Entrepreneurship Challenge held in February at McMaster. Out of the 25 groups that participated, Taha was selected as the winner. As the winner, he will be competing at the regional competition, Launchpad, in Waterloo today (April 4).

Taha has always been drawn to entrepreneurship. Now, he is using his MBA studies to give him the business skills he needs to make his invention a commercial success. “I realized I needed some credentials, not just for others, but for myself as well,” he explains. “While I'm sitting in class, I'm always trying to apply what I'm learning to my business.”

Over the past year, Taha was able to incorporate his business, file a provisional patent and partner with an industrial design that will build his prototype.

He says that competitions such as Launchpad foster entrepreneurship among young inventors. “They're a good platform to get feedback on your ideas. I've always liked working on something from conception. There's no formula, no one can tell you how to do something. You just have to go for it.”