Our mission, team and Board

Incubate innovation and accelerate opportunities with the MT Lab

The first startup incubator dedicated to tourism, culture and entertainment in North America, MT Lab was created by UQAM and Tourisme Montréal and opened its doors in September 2017. Located in the heart of Montreal’s Quartier des spectacles, part meeting place, part startup gas pedal and part exchange platform, MT Lab supports companies with innovative solutions for major industry players.

MT Lab’s mission: to foster entrepreneurship and innovation in tourism, culture and entertainment.

Vision: By 2025, MT Lab aims to

  • Make Montreal and Quebec an internationally recognized hub for innovation in the tourism, culture and entertainment sectors.
  • To act as an agile catalyst between local and international start-ups, the innovation ecosystem and Quebec’s tourism industry, in order to strengthen its competitiveness.
  • To be a friendly, dynamic meeting place in Montreal, fostering innovative entrepreneurship and supporting the growth of MT Lab incubates.

Areas of innovation in the tourism, culture and entertainment industry

Do you think you have an innovative solution that could adequately address one or more of these 8 areas of innovation in the tourism, culture and entertainment industry? Take part in the Incubation Program and gain visibility with our partners and our ecosystem for potential business opportunities.

Capture, structure, analyze and segment data on a location or destination to make more targeted, revenue-generating strategic decisions. 
Visitor qualification, profiling, data modeling and categorization. 
Real-time data access for decision support or experimentation.
Traceability of occupancy rates and flow management support. 
Improve your business intelligence system (local and/or international market). 
Qualifying visitors throughout their visit. 
Strengthen data cybersecurity. 
Capture real-time feedback on visitor satisfaction. 

Personalized welcome by visitor profile

Signage and information access

Accessibility and equity (disability, language, culture, religion, etc.)

Managing flows and mobility on the territory with a more local perspective, maximizing local experiences (discovering a neighborhood, a city, a region) and modes of active mobility.

Equip host sites in more remote regions and in the wilderness, to diagnose occupancy rates and capacities in real time, and to analyze predictively the opportunities for forfeiting and the risks of overcapacity for each season (transfer from cities to the wilderness and the regions).

Solution accessible in off-grid mode (e.g. remote territories, overhead transmission, underground network).

Rethink the visitor’s experience, taking into account new sanitary measures and physical distance.

Define new customer experience standards: sanitary, contactless, on-board aircraft, health/biometric passports.
Experiences that enable visitors to participate, experience and contribute to the development of the offer and the collective well-being of the local community and its heritage.
Reinvention of point-of-sale and online purchasing platforms, with increased accessibility to local products (e.g. agri-food, crafts, etc.) and promoting economic spin-offs for the destination.
Integration of new digital and interactive tools to master 100% online or hybrid experiences throughout the visitor’s journey (before, during and after the experience), enabling new sources of revenue for the leisure, cultural, entertainment and business tourism sectors.
Turnkey solutions (e.g. packages or platforms) for booking and purchasing online before, during and after a visit, and products or services that complement an experience and its distribution and broadcasting.
Tools to empower the visitor’s experience, and accessibility to and evaluation of individual experiences (e.g. digital guide or concierge).
Creation of new multi-sensory, interactive and/or immersive experiences and concepts, to make visitor flow more fluid and fun, and enhance attractiveness.
Customization of more targeted offers by interest or theme (e.g. tourist routes and circuits) and development of packages to benefit a maximum number of players in a given territory (e.g. platform), location or pan-Canadian network (e.g. hotels, restaurants, convention venues, etc.).
Rethink and equip locations and destinations in need of revitalization to enhance or evolve the existing offer (e.g. hotel rooms, meeting and convention facilities, sports center, etc.) while developing new sources of revenue (e.g. new use of a location) and preparing for the gradual return of local and international leisure and business visitors.
Vitalize and maintain access to cultural products, services and events to contribute to well-being.
Solutions that enhance the Quebec winter experience, or adapt to the seasons.
Modular or reusable fittings, design or furniture for multifunctional spaces, and redevelopment of spaces where the reason for use has changed or evolved as a result of the pandemic.
Automation and robotization solutions that increase or improve the productivity of one or more departments, or other emerging technologies that identify problematic processes and can replace non-value-added tasks or situations that are complex for humans to optimize.
Tools to help you make decisions and increase independent income.
Collaborative tools to optimize internal communication and centralize information, particularly in a context of increasing teleworking.
Development of more agile and flexible processes, including the pooling of skills.
Tools to better target training and empowerment issues for teams (permanent and temporary) and managers, to increase employee engagement, improve customer service quality and reduce turnover.
Set up communication tools to restore talent’s confidence and encourage it to reinvest in the tourism, culture and entertainment sector, and to attract and recruit new talent, particularly from the next generation.

Increased trust and responsibility in employees (with technological or non-technological tools), more agile and flexible for records management, change management and access to information.

Alternative solutions to temporary labor shortages to boost productivity and efficiency: employer branding, retention, pooling, optimization, automation, robotization.

Training and skills development planning tools to help employers and managers better manage the unexpected and their teams in times of crisis (doing more with less).
Refresher training in the use of new data and technologies integrated into the company (database management tools, internal or video-conferencing communication tools, etc.).
Training to support host sites located in remote areas, to better plan their hosting capacity and experience.
Solutions for loyalty (new methods and offers), corporate engagement, discovery of destinations outside Quebec, and development of local offers to stimulate demand.
Original ways to promote more remote regions.
Defining or redefining a destination’s values and aligning promotion with them, to generate demand among targeted visitors who share similar values, for a more harmonious destination.
Integrate a good balance between tools, promotional and direct marketing resources aimed at local customers, while maintaining interest in foreign markets and the media.
Capture expectations, irritants and “best practices” to better represent diversity, ensure universal accessibility and meet the needs of specific clienteles: local, LGBTQ+, multilingual, multicultural, people with reduced physical ability, etc. and development of offers (online and on-site) linked to specific themes or market niches (e.g. e-sport, cycling, hunting and fishing, golf, wildlife observation, religious heritage, etc.).
Rebuild trust for the destination by communicating the health and safety measures put in place, in collaborative mode with destinations (cities, associations, government, etc.).
Giving a voice to local destination residents to reinforce and communicate to visitors the image of a harmonious destination.
Intensification and improvement of ecological and sustainable practices, to mitigate environmental impact at destination and preserve tangible and intangible heritage (e.g. gastronomy, wildlife icons).
The role of visitors in generating an impact on the host community and location, from a perspective of sustainable tourism and social and environmental responsibility.
Integration of clean technologies and awareness of sustainable and waste-free best practices, with increased interest in nature and outdoor destinations.
Increased access to local products, services and entertainment offers for visitors, enabling them to play an active role in preserving the region’s assets and generating a positive impact on the community. Enhance the cultural character, identity and values of the Quebec destination.
Involve residents of local destinations at the heart of activities to use their leverage as ambassadors and thus establish a harmonious relationship between visitors and citizens.
Reuse existing technologies (e.g. QR codes, geolocation tools, etc.) or facilities, and reduce the impact caused by increased digital use (e.g. good data and e-mail management to reduce server overuse).
Sustainable development plan, social involvement, eco-design, reduction or compensation of greenhouse gas emissions.

The MT Lab story

Tourism in Montreal and Quebec is a real economic driver. Yet the industry’s lag in innovation has been demonstrated by several studies, including one by the Transat Chair in Tourism at ESG UQAM.

In the spring of 2015, a delegation from UQAM’s École des sciences de la gestion (ESG UQAM), the City of Montreal and Tourisme Montréal traveled to Paris to meet the Welcome City Lab team, an incubation program for innovation in tourism.

The idea then arose to collaborate on the creation of a similar initiative in Quebec.

The MT Lab was set up by the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and its École des sciences de la gestion (ESG UQAM), and the project was made possible thanks to the support of Tourisme Montréal. Financial support from the Ville de Montréal and the Ministère des Affaires municipales et de l’Occupation du territoire enabled the premises to be set up in the heart of the Quartier des spectacles.

The MT Lab team

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Martin Lessard
General Manager
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Frédérick Roussel
Executive Vice-President
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Florence Barbeau
Director of Partnerships and Open Innovation
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Vincent Lafrenaye-Lamontagne
Director, Entrepreneurship and Open Innovation Programs
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Julien Bergeron
Director, Pôle d'innovation en tourisme durable
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Nathalie Pentier
Tourism Innovation Program Manager

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Mathias Prouvost
Strategic Advisor Business Intelligence and Entrepreneurship
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Camille Lamoureux
Open innovation advisor to major partners
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Amandine Klein
Senior Advisor, Entrepreneurship & Innovation
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Solène April
Consultant Analyst Le Pôle
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Clément Herf
Innovation program management consultant
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Émilie Gaudette
Senior Advisor - Innovation Program Management
Karine Wolfe
Community space and animation manager
Yves Papa
Senior Advisor Intellectual Property Strategy
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Marion Leboyer
Administrative Coordinator

MT Lab Board of Directors

Chairman
President

iXmédia, Kabane, and Septembre Éditeur
Vice President
Assistant General Manager
Culture Trois-Rivières
Secretary
Director, Legal Services
ALDO Group
Treasurer
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Phi Center
Director
Partner at Real Ventures
General Manager, FounderFuel
Director
Vice President Sales and Service
Tourisme Montréal Convention
Director
Director and teacher

Media School, Université du Québec à Montréal
Director
Executive Director of the Vice-Rectorate for Research, Creation and Dissemination at UQAM
Director
Senior Vice President, Marketing and Digital Strategy

CAA-Quebec
Director
Product Manager
EverCommerce
Director
Director of Partnerships and Innovation Support at UQAM