We believed that finding sustainability grants should be easier—and faster. So we built SustAInable, an AI-powered tool that matched people with the right grants in seconds.

It came together as part of UBC’s Tech Entrepreneurship (Tech E) course, which brings together MBA students and STEM researchers to build something real in 12 weeks. Weekly deliverables, customer calls, pivots, late nights—you name it, we did it. By pitch day, our prototype worked: you could type in your needs and get matched with relevant grants, fast.

We eventually decided to wind things down. A few reasons:

• None of us were particularly excited about grants. We saw it more as a use case for the tech.

• Our team was heading in different directions: Michelle to Copenhagen, Christian and I to Yale, others to new research and jobs.

Still, I’m so proud of what we made. I learned a ton about LLMs and NLP from a brilliant teammate. I got to flex my entrepreneurial muscle for the first time in a while. And I got lucky—again—with a team that just clicked. We’re still friends and check in regularly.

Not every idea turns into a company. But this one reminded me I still love to build.