Welcome to invest in yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast. Join the podcast mogul Phil Better as he interviews successful entrepreneurs that make your living in the digital world. Now let's join your Host, feel better, and your special guest today on invest in yourself, the digital entrepreneur podcast.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur podcast. I am, of course, your host with the most feel better, And I'm excited to have our guest today. Another amazing Canadian in the information technology area with over 18 years of Experience for the last 15 years though in the professional service and consulting. Our guest helps companies access government funding programs and helps companies in a very, Oh, sorry. Helps companies access government funding programs and helps companies in a varied of Industries to file maximize and sustainable tax credit claims. His clients represent a number of industries including telecommunications, software IT, Electronics, financial services institution, aerospace, defense, health IT, and biotechnology. He assists his clients In a number of areas, including determining the of eligible expenditures, preparation of technical reports, review of documents incorporating best practices to maximize Claim size and handling potential CRA matters, including audit defense, which no one wants to deal with audits. Our guest is heavily involved in business developed initiatives working with international companies to enter the Canadian market, develop Strategic partnerships with technology associates and working closely with startup companies to help them get to the next level.

He also works To mentor, connect, and introduce companies to the accounting business functions at his current company Grant Thornton. Please welcome, Marim. Marim, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks, thanks Phil. Thanks for having me.

So, Noreem, I'm gonna just ask you to quickly introduce yourself. I gave this beautiful bio of you that's very ask. But who are you, and what do you do?

Yeah. Actually, it's it's it's Naren. But, you know

I apologize. I I didn't even wanna attempt at your last because I was I listened to it on LinkedIn, and I was like

It's an old social

not gonna hurt you with that. So, man, I'm sorry about that.

No. No. That's okay. I did I did mention that off the top, but, no. Again, thanks for having me. So, I would say, yeah, I can sort of take you back to to to sort of my story. You know, you you gave me sort of introduction in terms of, Where I am now, but I kinda started at a different spot. So, in university, I did, I studied computer science.

So, you know, back in the day, there was everybody remembers the tech the tech boom, the .com days. You know, it was kind of the the trend for, you know, a lot of people at the time to to look at technology. And it largely has played out. Like, you know, if you look at And it largely has played out. Like, you know, if you look at where we are with technology, look at, you know, right now it's AI and chat, chat, and things like that. It was Much different back then, but still it was trending in that direction. So, you know, I always had an interest in technology even growing up, you know, playing playing out with my, you know, the the PCs and the different things that needs to happen as kids. But, yeah, I got into that field.

And so, you know, I did, you know, a lot of the typical software hardware, things like that. I came out of school, And, and I and I started working in software. So in in industry, you know, you know, do doing a lot of the coding and, doing a lot of and other things like testing. A lot of different different accounting software. Worked at IBM actually, when I was, coming in as part of a co op program in school and then coming out of school as well. So that experience and then sort of sort of sort of it shifted for me, you know, as I was kind of looking at my career path and I said, you know, I kinda I like it but I don't see myself doing this for the rest of my career. So, was kinda looking at different things, different options and this is where kind of I entered. I had done business as kind of a minor through high school and university as well so I did have an interest in business.

I did have an interest in, you know, like, maybe working more closely with with people and and companies and things like that. So that's where I was kind of Brought into this opportunity, it was an accounting firm. It was kind of blending my, you know, my my level of technology and and and but also the aspect of And being able to work with, you know, entrepreneurs and working with companies, working with people doing really innovative things. And so that's where this journey started, kind of 15 years ago, Got involved and sort of haven't looked back. So the idea there is just, as you mentioned off the top, it's really looking to help companies take advantage of Funding. So we do a lot of different things but it's really the funding space. The number 1 question I always get from entrepreneurs is money, right? So how do we scale? How do do we get to the next level? What do we do to to increase our runway? And so I'm really I'm really proud. I'm really happy that I'm able to be a part of that.