When Kurt Heinrich arrived at UBC in 2018 as the new senior director of media relations, he sought a better way to measure his team’s impact. He initiated a simple Google Sheet for logging calls received from journalists.
Little did he know that within five years, this spreadsheet would evolve into a software company, co-led by Heinrich, with several Canadian research universities and health authorities among its clients.
Vancouver’s Broadsight Technologies is now one of 26 ventures to advance to the third round of the 2024 New Ventures BC competition.
Its flagship product, Broadsight Tracker, is a web-based collaboration platform designed to help media relations and communications teams track media requests and other services they provide. The platform enables teams to harness data from their work, analyze trends, evaluate success, and automate C-suite level reporting.
Heinrich, along with technical co-founder Dr. John-Jose Nunez—a psychiatrist at BC Cancer with a master’s degree in computer science from UBC—developed the SaaS app with the help of student interns who wrote the code. UBC’s media relations team provided constant real-time feedback, and entrepreneurship@UBC’s Venture Founder program offered business advice.
After incubating with the support of university leadership, Broadsight spun off from UBC earlier this year. Now a private venture led by Heinrich and Nunez, it continues to gain new clients.
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