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Business co-founded by Ivey student wins Startupfest, named Hult Prize finalist

Aug 7, 2024

L-r: Diana Virgovicova, HBA student Shirley Zhong, and Kerem Topal Ismail Oglou at the Hult Prize Lisbon Summit

When HBA student Shirley Zhong organized the 2024 Western Hult Prize Competition at Ivey so her classmates and others could test their entrepreneurial mettle, she never imagined she’d later compete for the prestigious Hult Prize and other entrepreneurial awards herself.

Having since joined forces with two friends from the University of Toronto – Diana Virgovicova and Kerem Topal Ismail Oglou – to co-found Xatoms, a water purification startup, Zhong and her team have been on a whirlwind journey to success.

The trio recently won three prizes totalling $250,000 at Startupfest 2024 in Montreal and took home a whopping $500,000 after the Business Development Bank of Canada matched their winnings. Xatoms will also participate in the Hult Prize global accelerator, August 15 to September 6, and the Hult Prize 2024 Global Finals, both in London, U.K. The Xatoms cofounders qualified for the U.K. events after competing in the University of Toronto’s Hult Prize event. Xatoms was among the top 14 of 9,400 teams and the only Canadian team in the mix.

Ivey competition fuels passion for entrepreneurship

And it all came about because of Zhong’s involvement in the Western Hult Prize Competition. As a Hult Campus Ambassador, Zhong wasn’t allowed to participate in the university’s competition, which is the first step to the global Hult finals, but was intrigued by the Western social enterprises. While organizing the event, she learned Virgovicova and Topal Ismail Oglou were launching Xatoms, so she encouraged them to participate in their university’s own Hult Prize Competition. Needing a third partner to qualify, they asked her to join the team, and she became a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer shortly afterward. The three initially met last year. Zhong and Topal Ismail Oglou were both part of the 2023 Cansbridge Fellowship cohort and later interned at the same company in Tokyo, where Virgovicova just happened to be travelling

While their success might seem swift, Virgovicova said it has been a long, hard journey to get to this point, especially with funding.

“It has been a really tough journey with a lot of rejections, and I’m sure many more still coming, but that’s just part of entrepreneurship,” she said. “It’s actually a good thing if you fail several times so you can get better.”

Dirty river sparks quantum leap in water purification

Now in her 20s, Virgovicova became devoted to discovering a solution for water pollution at age 14 when she was backpacking in India and learned how the heavily polluted river was making people sick. By age 17, she had won the prestigious Stockholm Junior Water Prize for discovering a molecule that could break down water pollutants. This eventually led her to co-found Xatoms, short for Exploration of Atoms, which uses quantum chemistry and artificial intelligence to clean water of contaminants like pesticides, herbicides, viruses, and bacteria. Ivey Lecturer Lameck Osinde, who leads the Africa Service Learning course, has helped the Xatoms team to connect with organizations in Kenya for potential pilot projects to supply clean water. The team members said a recent highlight in their entrepreneurial journey was visiting the Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya where they saw how dire the need for clean water is and the impact their company can make.

Tapping into Ivey’s entrepreneur resources

Now Zhong, an HBA/Engineering ’26 candidate, is leveraging Ivey’s resources to grow the company. She’s taking both the Ivey New Venture Project and HBA Sustainability Certificate and said the programs’ faculty members have been great mentors. She is even working with Professor Oana Branzei, Director of the Sustainability Certificate, on a live case on Xatoms and collaborating with Branzei and Dusya Vera, PhD ’02, on a research project called Purpose 2.0 through the Western Undergraduate Summer Research Internships.

“I’m able to always take the Ivey case learning and apply it to Xatoms right away,” she said. “And I always bring up questions to my professors and get quick feedback.”

Next step? Regenerating the future

Xatoms will also participate in the upcoming Regenerator initiative, a collaboration between Ivey’s Centre for Building Sustainable Value and the Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship, that provides education to founders of startups aiming to regenerate the future.

“Everyone at Ivey is super supportive. It’s not like I’m out there swimming with the sharks,” said Zhong. “Ivey is like a home I can come back to where I know all of the professors will be advocating for me – advocating for me as a student and advocating for the company.”

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