As a self-proclaimed introvert, Mylene Tu never expected to dive into the world of entrepreneurship. Now with the help the EPIC VentureWomen program, she is working on her second business.

“I accidentally fell into entrepreneurship in my first year of engineering,” says Tu, a third-year student of management engineering at the University of Waterloo. “From there I realized that I had a lot of misconceptions in my mind of being too young or too inexperienced to do something.”

Together with her business partner Fatimah Areola, she has launched Lumaki Labs, an EdTech startup on a mission to revolutionize the future of work through virtual internships.

“We saw the impacts of COVID-19 on experiential learning, and saw this as an opportunity to help normalize virtual internships as a way to strengthen future talent pipelines and open more doors for students even after the pandemic,” Tu says.

EPIC VentureWomen is a program of the Entrepreneurship Practice and Innovation Centre (EPICentre), and provides participants with mentorship, access to workshops, industry connections, tools, and resources.

Tu hopes it will help her launch Lumaki Labs, and adds “I am eager and excited to engage and grow with the other amazing women in this program.”

Read a full profile on the centre’s website.

This is the first in a series of articles introducing the current cohort of EPIC VentureWomen.