André Bertram

The Eyeopener’s report of September 16, 2015, states that he and Frank Nguyen were both 17; Nguyen was a Grade 12 student at Danforth Collegiate, and his idea for an easy health-monitoring system came from his mother’s health problems, including heart problems. The report states that Nguyen was one of 10 high-school students chosen for the Youth Basecamp Program at Ryerson University’s Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, a six-week program teaching startup basics; Nguyen was given $1,000, created a team to build the HeartWatch, and invited his close friend and classmate André Bertram to work alongside him and co-found HelpWear. After the six-week program their project was chosen as one of the top three, and they pitched to a panel of investors and academics at the end of Basecamp the previous August.⁠[1]

Toronto Life’s profile states that he and Nguyen were at Danforth Collegiate together; Nguyen found his mother at the bottom of the stairs with a broken leg, doctors linked the fall to a minor cardiac event, and the two set out to build “an Apple Watch–type device” that could detect heart abnormalities. In the piece he calls himself and Nguyen “hacker types.” The article states that HelpWear was founded in 2015 and started with $1,000 from the Brookfield Institute through Ryerson.⁠[2]

The University of Calgary’s UCeed portfolio page states that Nguyen was motivated by his mother’s serious heart problems and brought in his high-school friend Andre Bertram. The Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s profile states that he founded HelpWear at 17 to help a co-founder’s disabled mother call for help quickly, and that he had little experience in healthcare technology when he started.⁠[3][4]

An article published by Velocity in 2018 states instead that he co-founded HelpWear at 17 with his classmate Frank Nguyen at the University of WaterlooUniversity of WaterlooThe University of Waterloo is a university in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, that opened in 1957 with engineering as its first faculty. Co-operative education, alternating academic and work terms, has been a guiding value since its founding; in October 1957 its first engineering students began what the university describes as Canada’s first educational work term.Open the full entry.⁠[5]

The Eyeopener’s report describes HelpWear’s product, the HeartWatch, as a wearable that gathers and stores data on blood pressure, heart rate and blood oxygen levels; in the prototype a green light shines into the blood in the capillaries and sensor readings record blood pressure and heartbeat variation. He explained that an embedded SIM card could call emergency medical services if the user was in distress or had an irregular heart rate, and that an internal GPS could locate the device, whereas other personal emergency response systems rely on a button and another telecommunications system. He said the design should not depend on “cellphones or Bluetooth,” pointing to “the aging population in Canada,” and said “we think it’s very important for there to be a very easy system.” He also said “We’re currently partnered with the Biomedical Zone at Ryerson University”; the report states that the Biomedical Zone is based at St. Michael’s Hospital, and he said he hoped its expertise would make the device smaller, sleeker and more “marketable,” with Nguyen adding better data.⁠[1]

The Toronto Observer’s report of November 4, 2015, states that he, at 17, was HelpWear’s CEO and the talker of the pair, and that he planned to study engineering or business at university; Nguyen built the watch and planned to study electrical engineering. The report describes the HeartWatch as a 24/7 heart monitoring and analysis system that analyzes the heart’s electrical activity and pulse and contacts emergency medical services if it predicts a heart attack or other distress; they had a proof-of-concept prototype, which he said still needed development before it could go to market. He said “Through the Ryerson Base Camp program, we made a connection with Dr. Linda Maxwell,” whom he described as the head of the Biomedical Zone; he also said Nguyen was driven by concern over his mother’s heart problems. The report states that Base Camp gives entrepreneurial high-school students seed funding and mentorship, that the Biomedical Zone is a partnership between Ryerson University and St. Michael’s Hospital, and that HelpWear would work with cardiologists there to make the product saleable.⁠[6]

Toronto Life’s profile states that Dr. Linda Maxwell, executive director of the Biomedical Zone at St. Michael’s Hospital, first met them when all they had was a 3-D-printed prototype and a big idea, and gave them an office and connected them with clinicians, and that the Biomedical Zone, St. Michael’s Hospital and Ryerson were the company’s first major backers.⁠[2]

A post on the Danforth CTI school blog on March 3, 2016, congratulates Frank Nguyen and him, MaST students, on creating HelpWear, a company that aims to improve at-home healthcare with affordable, accessible products for patients worldwide; its first product, the HeartWatch, provides 24/7 at-home heart monitoring with an embedded emergency contact system. The post states that both were accepted to compete over March break at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers Management Conference for $4,000 in seed funding, and that HelpWear’s application to the Ontario Center for Excellence (OCE) had been accepted, placing it among the top 70 companies for OCE funding, with a presentation to follow at OCE’s Discovery Conference to compete for further funding, and that being in OCE’s system would help their future grant applications.⁠[7]

Articles by BetaKit and Innovation Factory in 2019 state that HelpWear won the $25,000 grand prize at the 2016 CNE Innovation Garage, along with in-kind services from several partners. A MAKO blog post states that the team won a $25,000 grant at the CNE Innovation Garage’s Emerging Innovators pitch competition the previous summer, judged by Kevin Mako, the astronaut Jeremy Hansen and a marketing manager from HP Canada.⁠[8][9][10]

Velocity’s article states that the team worked out of Velocity Science, and that at the fall 2016 Velocity Fund Finals he was the youngest person ever to pitch.⁠[5]

News from the University of Waterloo’s Systems Design Engineering department on November 1, 2017, describes him as a Systems Design Engineering student at the university and co-founder of HelpWear, and Frank Nguyen as a Computer Engineering student there.⁠[11]

Velocity’s article states that HelpWear attended Y Combinator in summer 2017; BetaKit wrote in 2019 that the company is an alumnus of Y Combinator, Creative Destruction Lab-West and Bayer Grants4Apps. Toronto Life’s profile states that they joined UBC’s Creative Destruction Lab, that Y Combinator connected them to investors in their seed round, and that the University of Waterloo Faculty of Engineering and the Conrad Centre were also major supporters, with grants totaling hundreds of thousands.⁠[5][8][2]

Y Combinator’s company page lists Andre Bertram as HelpWear’s founder, with the company located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and a team size of 2.⁠[12]

The experience listed on his LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry public profile includes serving as Systems Design Engineering Representative for the Waterloo Engineering Endowment Fund.⁠[13]

News from the University of Waterloo’s Systems Design Engineering department on November 1, 2017, states that he and Nguyen appeared on the CBC show Dragons’ Den, Season 12, Episode 4 (at around the 36-minute mark), and that “every Dragon invested.” CBC Gem’s Season 12 page lists Episode 4 as a Student Special whose synopsis mentions students from Waterloo and their innovative health product.⁠[11][14]

A MAKO blog post states that he and Nguyen asked the Dragons for $100K in exchange for 10% of the company, that all the Dragons wanted to invest, and that the deal closed at $100K for 12%; it adds that the team won the MAKO Student Innovation Award after several MAKO community awards, including a $100K grant in partnership with the Brookfield Institute and Ryerson, and that HelpWear was then in the incubator at St. Michael’s Hospital and Ryerson University’s Biomedical Zone. Toronto Life’s profile states that they got $100,000 in total from all six Dragons.⁠[10][2]

On June 22, 2018, the Thiel Foundation named 20 people to the 2018 class of Thiel Fellows, who receive $100,000 and mentorship from the foundation’s network; he is item 1 in the list, from Toronto, Canada, with HelpWear in the medical-device field, described as CEO of HelpWear, a company creating a 24/7 at-home, clinical-grade ECG monitor worn on a patient’s wrist or arm.⁠[15]

BrainStation wrote the same day that he was one of three Canadians selected in 2018, and that the Thiel FellowshipThiel FellowshipThe Thiel Fellowship is a two-year grant program started by investor Peter Thiel and run by the Thiel Foundation that funds young people who skip or stop out of college to build new things instead. The program has been criticized by figures in education for encouraging young people to leave college.Open the full entry provides US$100,000 over two years plus mentorship from the Thiel Foundation’s network of founders, investors and researchers. BetaKit listed him on June 25, 2018, as one of three Canadian winners, describing HelpWear’s product as a “24/7 at-home, clinical-grade ECG monitor” worn on the wrist or arm. Velocity wrote on June 23 that he and Shak Lakhani were both Velocity entrepreneurs, two of the three Canadian recipients, and that the fellows were chosen from thousands of applicants.⁠[16][17][5]

Velocity’s article also states that the team was then focused on clinical validation and expected approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in late 2018 or early 2019.⁠[5]

The Thiel Fellowship is a two-year program founded by Peter ThielPeter ThielPeter Thiel is an American entrepreneur and investor, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Technologies, and the first outside investor in Facebook. He is a partner at the venture capital firm Founders Fund and founded the Thiel Fellowship, which funds young people to leave college and build new things; his public skepticism of higher education, his support for Trump in 2016, and his funding of litigation against Gawker Media have drawn controversy.Open the full entry in 2011 for young people who want to build new things; fellows skip or stop out of college.⁠[18]

BetaKit on May 13, 2019, and Innovation Factory on May 15 announced that Canada Research Chair Derek Exner was joining Toronto-based HelpWear as chief medical officer, leading clinical validation in Canada and internationally and supporting the regulatory approvals needed to distribute the HeartWatch; the articles name Andre Bertram as HelpWear’s CEO and one of three Canadian Thiel Fellows named in June 2018, and state that the company was then in Ryerson University’s Biomedical Zone incubator. They describe the HeartWatch as a non-invasive wearable ECG system that detects when the wearer is having a heart attack and automatically contacts emergency services, and that also records minor palpitations and arrhythmias and flags them for a physician’s review.⁠[8][9]

Innovation Factory’s article states that Exner is a cardiologist, heart rhythm specialist and clinical trials expert who has chaired and sat on Canadian and international committees, associate dean of clinical trials at the Cummings School of Medicine in Calgary, a scientist with Creative Destruction Lab’s health stream, and founder of the IMPACT clinical trials program for medical ventures.⁠[9]

Toronto Life’s profile describes HelpWear’s HeartWatch as a “clinical-grade ECG monitor that operates 24/7” that, if the wearer has a heart attack, sends emergency services the wearer’s medical history, a summary of the event and the location; it states that the company was headquartered at Victoria and Shuter in Toronto and had 7 employees.⁠[2]

The University of Calgary’s UCeed page describes the HeartWatch as a continuous, clinical-grade ECG monitor worn on the upper arm that needs no surgery or wet electrodes and is designed for people with heart rhythm disorders; it names Derek Exner, an electrophysiologist and Canada Research Chair at the University of Calgary, as the company’s third co-founder and chief medical officer and Nabil Uddin as chief of staff, and gives the company’s location as Calgary, Alberta. The page states that HelpWear was in the piloting stage, with paid pre-commercial pilot deployments in Canada, and aimed over the next year to complete its final regulatory study in Canada and the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States is a federal country in North America made up of 50 states, the District of Columbia as the seat of government, and territories such as Puerto Rico and Guam; its capital is Washington, D.C. The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted a resident population of 331,449,281, and the 435 seats of the House of Representatives are apportioned among the states on the basis of the census.Open the full entry and begin scaling deployment across health systems; the company received investment from UCeed, a venture philanthropy fund managed by Innovate Calgary.⁠[3]

University of Toronto Entrepreneurship’s startup page lists HelpWear under the Creative Destruction Lab and the Health Innovation Hub (H2i), describing its product as a “24/7 at home ECG monitor” that collects clinical-grade heart data from the wrist and is prescribed by clinicians.⁠[19]

Innovation Factory’s client profile states that HelpWear is pioneering a new category of long-term wearable heart monitors, with the HeartWatch worn on the bicep and using medical-grade metallic sensors to record a patient’s ECG for as long as needed; it lists Derek Exner as co-founder and chief medical officer, Andre Bertram as co-founder and chairman of the board, Scott Klein as chief executive officer and Owen Gillett as vice president of engineering. An undated announcement by the American Federation for Aging Research describes him instead as HelpWear’s co-founder and CEO, and states that the company builds a continuous clinical-grade ECG monitor, worn on a patient’s bicep, for the detection and better treatment of patients who experience cardiac arrhythmias.⁠[20][21]

In an undated announcement, the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) named him and James Fickel as new members of its Board of Directors. The announcement states that he co-founded Beyond Aging, a philanthropic entity that identifies barriers to commercializing geroscience and supports institutions in overcoming them, with the aim of bringing more young technologists and donors into the field; it also describes him as a founding member of the Longevity Biotechnology Association and a Thiel Fellow.⁠[21]

The Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) GSEA finalists page lists him as a finalist for Canada with HelpWear, and states that he expected clinical approval that year so that the HeartWatch could be sold to hospitals worldwide. In his Hospital News article of June 27, 2018, he wrote that HelpWear had won more than $300,000 through various grants and awards, most recently placing second in the Entrepreneurs’ Organization’s Global Student Entrepreneur Awards, which awarded it close to US$20,000.⁠[4][22]

The honors section of his LinkedIn public profile lists: GSEA Canadian National Champion (EO); the Minimum Viable Product Award from Ryerson University’s Office of the Vice President of Research and Innovation; Startup Summit Champion at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers Management Conference; the Norman Esch Enterprise Co-op Award from the University of Waterloo’s Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre; the Engineering Society Leadership Excellence New Student Award from the Waterloo Engineering Society; Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) Innovative Pitch Competition Champion; Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship (SAGE) SEB World Cup Champion; the University of Toronto Charles Dyer Scholarship; and the MAKO Invent Student Innovation Award from MAKO Invent and Ryerson University.⁠[13]

On June 27, 2018, he published a bylined article in Hospital News, “Ingenuity meets heart health with the HeartWatch,” whose author note describes him as CEO and co-founder of HelpWear Inc. who uses his background in science and systems engineering to tackle cardiovascular illness globally. The article opens by noting that heart disease is the second leading cause of death in Canada and, drawing on the Public Health Agency of Canada’s Canadian Chronic Disease Surveillance System, that about 1 in 12 Canadians aged 20 or over live with diagnosed heart disease; he writes that HeartWatch was born after Frank Nguyen came home from school one day to find his mother at the bottom of the stairs with a broken leg. He describes the HeartWatch as a clinical-quality ECG monitor worn on the wrist, developed and produced in-house at the Biomedical Zone at Ryerson in conjunction with St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, using printed circuit boards and data-processing models to detect soft and hard heart issues, and writes that consumer wearables give only a rudimentary view of heart rate while Holter monitors give high-grade data but are large, cumbersome and stigmatizing, with adhesive pads that can irritate the skin, and that the HeartWatch aims to combine the strengths of both. He writes that the device was “currently in trials” and that FDA approval was expected “in the coming year,” that a trend of “bringing the ICU into the home” had emerged in health care, and that the HeartWatch is meant to support doctors rather than replace them. The article closes: “we believe that we can change the narrative around heart disease and help foster a healthier Canada.”⁠[22]

Toronto Life’s profile gives his age as 20. In it he says he is a vegetarian with two cats and a rabbit and once wanted to be a vet but cannot give an animal a needle; the app he cannot live without is SnapchatSnapchatA visual messaging and social app developed by Snap Inc., launched in 2011, with photo and video messaging, Stories, augmented-reality Lenses, Snap Map and Spotlight.Open the full entry, his go-to communication platform, where he has 3,800 friends, investors among them; his tech role model is his uncle Hub, who built a company called Microart and “respects everybody, from janitor to CEO.” He says that in Toronto he wears a suit to work, and that when working in San Francisco he wore a suit and was laughed at; the office is always blasting pop music on an Amazon Echo, and its glass is soundproof. The best advice he has received, he says, is “Hire people who are 10 times better than you are”; the worst is that founders should wait until they are “ready,” which he rejects.⁠[2]

On his LinkedIn public profile he describes himself as a “Toronto and Abu Dhabi based founder, investor and philanthropist”; the profile lists English at native or bilingual proficiency and French at basic professional proficiency, and volunteer experience in disaster relief as Youth Leader of the Resilience Hub Initiative, a program in development as a joint collaboration involving Greening Sacred Spaces.⁠[13]

HelpWear: Official website: https://helpwear.ca/ (opens in a new window).⁠[23]

Thiel Fellowship: Official website: https://thielfellowship.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[18]

American Federation for Aging Research: Official website: https://www.afar.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[21]

LinkedIn: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrebertram (opens in a new window).⁠[20][13]