Tahrin Maruf (he/him)

I'm Tahrin Maruf, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at CORSphere, where we're using AI to transform how defense and industrial sectors handle maintenance and logistics. My path to entrepreneurship started unconventionally—I founded my first e-commerce company in Bangladesh when I was 19, which taught me early lessons about building something from nothing.

Over the past decade, I've worn many hats across different industries. At PolyUnity, I helped develop multiple healthcare products and navigate the company through a complete pivot during COVID-19 when we shifted to producing PPE. I also held permanent positions with government innovation teams at Health Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency, where I received a federal award for innovation and technology. This experience gave me insight into how emerging technologies can be adopted in complex regulatory environments.

What's been most valuable in my journey is learning how to bridge the gap between technical innovation and real-world application. With degrees in both computer science and business information systems, I work as both a software engineer and business operations person. This dual perspective—understanding both the technical feasibility and business viability—is crucial when building products that actually solve real problems. At CORSphere, we've raised substantial funding, including a significant Ocean Supercluster project, and built partnerships with large defense companies and energy companies. We went through Creative Destruction Lab, which was transformative in helping us think bigger about our market approach. We've also been recognized with several awards including the Mitacs Entrepreneur Award, Ocean Startup Challenge Award, and Ocean Ambition Challenge Award.

I think I'm valuable to early-stage founders because I've experienced the full spectrum of early troubles every startup faces—from the early battle of figuring out product-market fit, to navigating the funding landscape to going to scale. All my experiences have been in highly regulated industries - tax, healthcare and now defense and complex industries. I understand the unique challenges of building in regulated industries where compliance isn't optional, and I've learned how to communicate complex technical concepts to investors, customers, and partners who aren't necessarily technical themselves.

Most importantly, I've learned that persistence and adaptability matter more than having the perfect plan from day one.