Ilias Benjelloun
Co-Founder & Board Member
ElanTech
About Me
ilias Benjelloun is a seasoned entrepreneur with 15+ years in Canada’s tech ecosystem. He co-founded 3 startups, including AI scaleup Stay22, and is a co-founder of ElanTech Canada, the country’s leading tech founders community.
ilias has supported 1,000+ tech and science entrepreneurs, and led key initiatives to shape Canada’s innovation landscape. He launched and scaled the Innovation Lab & Venture arm at Desjardins, a $400bn assets institution; and developed community-centric endeavours at Hydro-Québec and Canadian Space Agency among others.
He’s committed to accelerating innovation where it matters most—by aligning the speed of startups, the scale of corporations, and the depth of research to build solutions with real-world impact. With bold innovation, meaningful inclusion and positive impact at the core.
Hear My Insights
What’s Next for DEI? - Allyship in Action: The Future of Inclusive Innovation
With traditional DEI approaches under pressure, this session explores how allyship provides a practical pathway to inclusion. Beyond DEI terminology, allies play a crucial role in creating environments where diverse perspectives thrive. We'll examine how diversity directly enhances innovation and explore how diverse teams identify and mitigate biases, ultimately creating more ethical and universally beneficial technologies. How can allies effectively champion inclusion and diversity when formal initiatives are constrained? What specific actions drive the most meaningful impact? And how might we quantify the innovation benefits of diversity to strengthen the business case during uncertain times?