Build an open, inspiring, and collaborative startup community
Mission
The OSMO Foundation is a non-profit organization whose mission is to support the growth, development, and international success of Montréal’s startup ecosystem. Thanks to the Notman House, it offers a vibrant and accessible environment to all, which stimulates collaboration as well as knowledge transfer and know-how between the different community actors. The OSMO Foundation thus contributes to building the future of Montréal.
Manifesto
At the heart of OSMO’s vision is a belief that the communities in which entrepreneurs grow, thrive and build world-changing companies need to be sustainable. Sustainability in this context has four underlying commitments:
a commitment to openness and inclusivity;
a commitment by entrepreneurs to invest in the development of their leadership capacity;
a commitment to a social contract of peer and mentor exchanges of knowledge; and
a commitment to broad stakeholder sustainability – including shareholders, employees, customers, suppliers, communities, families, cities and the planet.
OS MO SIS
Community projects for entrepreneurs
OSMO’s first project was to renovate a historic house and transform it into a technological hub for Montréal startups. Since then, Notman House has become the focal part of OSMO’s mission, a place where different actors from the ecosystem can meet, such as startup founders, the corporate world, investors, universities, and government institutions, allowing them to contribute to building a collaborative community
Powered by OSMO and CIFAR, the AI4Good Lab is an academic training program which lasts seven weeks, and which brings together a group of 30 women, from all over Canada. The program consists in a mix of conferences, workshops, and self-managed team projects. Instructors and mentors are university researchers, graduates and practitioners from various startups, companies, intergovernmental organizations and municipal governments. The focus is also placed on curiosity-based learning and mentorship, by peers and area experts. The Lab has the ambitious goal to tackle diversity and inclusion in the world of research and AI development, to inspire the next generation of technical leaders to make AI a force for social good.
TechAide is a platform for the Montréal tech ecosystem to give back to our local community. By bringing together tech entrepreneurs and professionals with diverse backgrounds and life stories with a common goal to combat social exclusion and poverty by raising funds, mobilizing resources and encouraging innovative approaches, we help Greater Montréal community agencies achieve their goals. Since 2016, Techaide has collected $1.3M for Centraide.
In 2018, OSMO and Mtl inc. answered the Québec government’s invitation to create a regional innovation hub in Montréal. That is how, in 2019, Bonjour Startup Montréal was born, a non-profit organization whose mission is to accelerate creation, growth and the success of Montréal startups, to position the city as one of the most dynamic ecosystems in the world. In February 2022, Bonjour Startup Montréal merged with Montréal inc., to create a new NPO : Startup Montréal.
The Startup Community Awards are an event organized by the OSMO Foundation, MTL NewTech and Startupfest. The Gala celebrates those who contribute to the development of Montréal’s startup ecosystem: people, places, and organizations which, often, work without recognition. There have been four editions until now : in 2017, 2018, 2021 and 2022.