DMZ and Pascal Siakam's PS43 award $50,000 at second EdTech Engine demo day

Toronto Metropolitan University's DMZ incubator and the PS43 Foundation, founded by basketball player Pascal Siakam, announced on July 21, 2026, that they had awarded $50,000 to three startups at the demo day of the second Siakam EdTech Engine Accelerator cohort, held at Deloitte in downtown Toronto. Seven startups pitched to a panel of expert judges that included Siakam, and the panel chose three grant recipients.

Classwise, an AI-powered assessment platform that helps educators grade faster, give rubric-aligned feedback and track student learning, received $30,000 and a pilot opportunity with the YMCA of Greater Toronto, Girls in STEM Academy and École secondaire catholique Père-Philippe-Lamarche. Training Ground.ai, which offers personalized lessons in literacy, numeracy and career-ready skills, received $15,000. CoLab Education, a collaboration platform for educators, school leaders and education partners, received $5,000. The other pitching startups were Coral Talk, Stemin AI, ThinkingThroughAI and Enya Learning.

The accelerator is a 12-week program, formally launched in February 2025, that helps startups bring education products into classrooms. Founders received DMZ programming, coaching and workshops, as well as mentorship from Google for Startups. Through the PS43 network, they worked with education partners to test their ideas. The second cohort widened the program's focus beyond K-12 education to include startups that help young people build AI skills for the workforce. The City of Toronto and TD Innovation Partners sponsored the demo day.

DMZ is the business incubator of Toronto Metropolitan University and runs incubation programs for early-stage technology founders, with a related investment arm, DMZ Ventures. According to the release, DMZ executive director Abdullah Snobar said startups can help schools adapt to AI because they move quickly and work alongside educators. The release said the second cohort built on the first year of the program but did not give details of the inaugural cohort. DMZ said applications for its Fall 2026 incubator would close on September 1, 2026.