Young entrepreneur Alex Gillis was keen to share his views on education with the Prime Minister when they met earlier this month.

Gillis was one of eight young Canadians, (Halifax-based Sage Franch was another) to be invited to meet the PM to discuss how education has fueled their success.  

“I told the PM there isn’t enough creativity in our school curricula,” said Gillis, who two years ago co-founded Bitness, a retail-focused location analytics product that allows stores to monitor customer traffic. Bitness uses devices called Bitness Beacons to track where, when and how long customers are in a store. 

“Students try to fit the mould, and simply receive good marks to impress universities,” Gillis said. “I told Trudeau that a lot of people are missing out on developing their interests. There needs to be more opportunities for expressing yourself.” 

Trudeau agreed. He told Gillis, who has recently graduated from the Sacred Heart School in Halifax, a story about when he was training to be a teacher. 

Apparently, one of Trudeau’s professors said that if you ask a primary class which of them are artists, the little ones all raise their hands. But by Grade 10, maybe one girl at the back of the class will admit to being an artist. Unless they are professionals, kids learn to be shy of their creativity.

Gillis has learned how to fill the gaps in conventional schooling. In Grade 12, he worked with Sacred Heart to add an experiential learning program to their curriculum, which meant students could receive academic credits for work such as starting a business. 

He and his technical co-founder on Bitness, Aristides Milios, a fellow student, worked with the school to develop the program.

Gillis got going as an entrepreneur after he won a hackathon at Halifax startup house, Volta Labs, in January 2014. Wanting to see more youth enter the business and technology space, he partnered with Volta’s Melody Pardoe to create Hoist Halifax, which offers free monthly workshops to teens. 

He was named Startup Canada’s Atlantic and national Young Entrepreneur of the Year for 2015. 

Gillis, who was born in Toronto but has grown up in Halifax, has recently been awarded a $100,000 Loran Scholarship, and will soon begin studying business at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where he may set up another Hoist program. 

Milios will remain in Halifax to study computer science at Dalhousie University. 

Gillis said he and Milios intend to keep developing their business.   

“We have an aggressive plan for sales and development for the coming months,” he said. 

“We will have a co-founder on each coast. We also have team members on the west coast, in Halifax and in the Toronto-Waterloo area. Being on the west coast will be good strategically…There’s a lot of money on the west coast. 

 “I’m hoping my move will offer me real experience and increased networking opportunities. I’ve been taking the ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ approach until now.”

Gillis said he always enjoyed math, coding and robotics. His interest in entrepreneurship was sparked by a video game in which the player runs an arcade and has to manage supply and demand. 

He credits the mentoring he has received in Atlantic Canada with helping him on his way. His mentors include well-known lights in the local startup community, such as Patrick Hankinson, previously of Compilr, Gillian McCrae of Propel ICT, Melody Pardoe of Volta Labs and Ying Tam, currently head of the Digital Health Cluster at MaRS Discovery District in Toronto. 

Gillis doesn’t think boosting creativity in schools is an easy fix. But he said mentors are accepting of younger faces in the local business community, and innovations like the experiential learning program at Sacred Heart help.   

“There isn’t one solution to this problem, but I hope people see Trudeau as an innovative leader,” he said. “I hope people will take that image and wonder how they can be innovative and drive change themselves.”