Meet Israel
Growing up in Veracruz, Mexico, Israel was always fascinated by how the brain works, neurotechnology, artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship. These interests led him to pursue a graduate degree at McMaster University. Guided by the advice of a trusted mentor, he chose the Master of Engineering Entrepreneurship & Innovation (MEEI) as the ideal program to transition from being an employee to learning the fundamentals of entrepreneurship.
Israel arrived in Canada as an economic class immigrant in 2014 with the intention of starting his own neurotechnology business. After graduation, he joined McMaster’s Forge Business Incubator, a limited-enrollment program for early-stage startups, and founded Zentrela Inc. Today, this Hamilton-based neurotech company is a successful and promising Canadian startup with the potential to disrupt the global cannabis industry and drug testing market.
Migration Context:
In a context of declining fertility rates and an ageing population, Canada relies on immigration to grow its population and economy. All three immigration streams - economic class, family class, and refugee/protected person - contribute to this growth.
About half of the immigrants living in Canada at the time of the 2016 Census were economic class immigrants. Skilled workers, international students, tradespeople, entrepreneurs and others immigrate to Canada via more than 80 different provincial and federal economic class immigration streams.
Economic immigrants are generally younger than the Canadian-born population. A growing proportion originally came to Canada as international students or temporary foreign workers before applying to become permanent residents.
Immigrants are more likely to own a business than the Canadian-born population. Canada does have some business immigration programs, but these account for a minority of immigrant entrepreneurs in the country.
In Hamilton today, about one in four residents is an immigrant, and two-thirds of the city’s population growth comes from immigration.
