THE CONCEPT

Saft was originally a final-year project, conceived by Tim during his master's degree. A brief: the problem had to be linked to the country that would host him, Canada.

Coming shortly after the data theft affair at Desjardins, this event was a source of inspiration for him: he discovered the challenges of identification, data protection and authentication.

Improper use of passwords can compromise the security of a company's data. They can be too complex to remember, or too easy to hack.

In February 2021, Tim plans to make his final project a business. He begins to learn about patents, about the future of his idea, and he surrounds himself with a collaborator to take the project further, Paul.

They meet in the evening after work, two to three times a week, at the Centech premises. The project was born in the incubator, and grew there.

One day, they came across a presentation of an acceleration cohort and the idea took hold. In July 2022, Centech validated their admission. At the end of February 2023, they joined the cohort .

A DESIGNER'S ASSET

The strength of these three entrepreneurs is their common background in design, more particularly in user experience design.

“Often in technical fields, where design is left behind, human factors have rarely been considered in creating solutions.”

Starting from the observation that authentication is designed more for machines than for humans, the expertise of Tim, Paul and Joseph leads them to think of simpler, more ergonomic solutions. From his first professional experiences, Tim was eager to start his own business, frustrated that design was crushed by other business cultures in several large companies. His ambition is to put design back in its rightful place: from the vision, before production.

THE CENTECH ACCELERATION PROGRAM

Centech is a global incubator and non-profit organization, open to all, that focuses on deeptech companies with high growth potential. In 2022, UBI Global ranked it among the top ten university business incubators in the world.

Their acceleration program is a gateway to the world of entrepreneurship, followed by their twenty-four-month propulsion program. For twelve weeks, startups benefit from free and personalized support, more than fifty workshops (pitch, sales, financial intelligence, intellectual property, etc.) and a network of quality mentors.

A JOURNEY FULL OF CHALLENGES

"As a foreigner, you have to be better than someone who lives here. You have to prove that you deserve to be here."

This is Saft’s driving force: to innovate, to stand out.

Today, the project is in the ideation phase. The trio is at a pivotal moment where the substance and form of the project are constantly being questioned, shaken up, and pushed to evolve. "As designers, we know how to lead a project. But we don't know how to adapt it to a market, who to address, how..."

For the three partners, this acceleration demystifies many things about entrepreneurship. "We are surrounded by realistic people, who know this field like no one else, they have succeeded and failed at everything, so they know the things to do and not to do."

To carry out this reflection successfully, Centech is the ideal place: surrounded by many other incubatees and wise mentors, it is impossible to miss a good piece of advice or a good idea. Add to that a hundred phone calls and daily brainstorming sessions as a team... There is no doubt that this project will go far!

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