DEM Graduate Michael Owusu Developing App to Help Canadians Draft Their Will

Original story from University of Toronto News.

ICCIT graduate Michael Owusu has an ambitious goal in mind: helping over one million people in Canada draft a will.

In 2018, Michael Owusu enrolled at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) as a mature student in the Digital Enterprise Management (DEM) program. It was during the program's fourth-year technological entrepreneurship class that he came up with the idea for Willify – an app that can streamline the process of drafting a will.

Owusu says there are significant barriers to drafting a will, particularly for young people and members of marginalized communities. "There’s a huge unmet need for will-drafting. Given my previous work in banking and government, I’ve seen how not having a will can be so detrimental to people’s lives, no matter their age."

In January 2023, Willify was accepted into the early-stage program at ICUBE, UTM’s social entrepreneurship accelerator and incubator. The following month, the company placed among the top five finalists out of 40 competing startups at the Sauga Start-up Pitch Competition.

Michael Owusu, who graduated from the DEM program in Spring 2023, now works at the Canada Revenue Agency as a coaching specialist in learning and development. However, he continues to work on Willify in pursuit of helping Canadians with this often challenging legal process.