Dr. Najib Ayas,
Associate Professor, Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, University of British Columbia

Dr. Ayas is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of British Columbia and staff at the Leon Judah Blackmore Centre for Sleep Disorders at UBC Hospital.

He completed his medical degree at the University of Alberta graduating second in his class, his Internal Medicine Residency at the Mayo Clinic, and a Respiratory/Critical Care/Sleep and Research Fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He also completed a Masters in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health.

He has been actively involved in clinical practice and research of sleep since 1996 with more than 200 scientific publications. His work has been funded by a variety of sources including the Canadian Institute of Health Research, Canadian Patient Safety Institute, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, British Columbia Lung Association, MITACS, sleep technology companies, and the National Institutes of Health. He is currently the number one obstructive sleep apnea expert in Canada.

He is an Executive Member of the Canadian Sleep Society, Head of the Canadian Thoracic Society Sleep Disordered Breathing Guidelines Committee, and previous Chair of the American Thoracic Society Sleep and Respiratory Neurobiology Planning Committee.

Each finalist has been assigned a mentor to help fine-tune their presentation.

Jason Robertson,
Vice President, Investments of Nimbus Synergies

Jason is a Co-Founder of Nimbus Synergies, a $20M venture capital fund investing in digital health technologies. As Vice President of Investments, Jason leads early-stage financings in innovative health technology companies and then leverages his professional experience to help these companies scale.

Since Nimbus’ founding in 2017, Jason has led investments in nine BC-based companies deploying almost $12M. In January 2020, portfolio company Blue Mesa Health was acquired by Virgin Pulse. As Nimbus’ first exit, this was a tremendous accomplishment and Jason served as a significant contributor through his role as a Board Director.

Jason currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of Alavida Health, Board Director of LifeBooster, and Board Observer for Claris Healthcare and Zennea Technologies.

Prior to Nimbus, Jason was head of Business Development for Aquinox Pharmaceuticals for almost a decade. During that time, Jason was integrally involved in the company’s raising of >$200M in financing, successful NASDAQ IPO, as well as initiating a $155M partnership with Japanese pharmaceutical company Astellas Pharma.