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MBET Alum Nicole Troster headshot
Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Building Coeurage, Community, and Change

Nicole Troster (MBET ’18) is helping women-led service businesses scale with clarity, confidence, and customer-centric strategy. After more than 15 years supporting entrepreneurs and co-founding ELLA, Nicole launched Coeurage Labs to fill a growing gap in Canada’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Inspired by her own family’s journey and driven by a commitment to empowering founders, Nicole combines evidence-based frameworks with deep customer understanding to help entrepreneurs build sustainable, scalable companies. 

Ameya Kale MBET headshot
Tuesday, August 5, 2025

Foundations of a founder: MBET alumni Ameya Kale on learning to build what matters

For Ameya Kale (MBET '22), entrepreneurship began not in a classroom, but in the kitchens of home chefs across India. After launching a home-cooked meal delivery platform, he found himself captivated by the startup world, but acutely aware of how much more there was to learn. 

“I was drawn to the Waterloo region’s vibrant startup ecosystem and the MBET program’s reputation for blending academic insight with real-world application,” he says. “I wanted to immerse myself in a community where I could learn how to navigate early-stage ventures more effectively.” 

Ameya’s goal coming into the program was clear: find his footing in a product-focused role, help shape solutions from the ground up, and connect with other founders to better understand the entrepreneurial journey. 

Jerome on motorcycle
Friday, July 4, 2025

Alumni Impact Series: Jerome Mugambi - Transforming trauma into community‑driven mental wellness

From a motorcycle crash in August 2022 to founding a peer‑powered mental wellness platform, Jerome Mugambi embodies the resilience and community mindset fostered in Waterloo’s MBET program. 

Within twelve months of the accident, he rode coast‑to‑coast across Canada to confront fear head‑on, built a nationwide motorcycling community, and reignited his passion for basketball through youth coaching. 

Today, his startup OpenUp uses AI‑assisted mentor matching to make mental health support radically accessible, an idea refined through League  of  Innovators, DMZ, YSpace, Innovation  Factory, and Builders Club  Waterloo.