Inka Mittler is a 4th-year Business Administration (BBA) student at St. Francis Xavier University, majoring in Finance and minoring in Economics.
Her entrepreneurial journey began early on in life and started taking on form when she won the “Introduction to Entrepreneurship” class-internal pitch competition as “Best Overall” in 2022, followed by winning 1st place in the case competition at the annual Women in Business Conference in 2023.
Throughout the continuation of the course “New Venture Development” taught by entrepreneurship professor Neil Maltby, Inka developed “ReSpool – 2nd Cycle Filament” – a business model aimed at reducing plastic waste polluting the environment and increasing the supply of recycled 3D printer filament by creating a circular economy and turning filament from a single-use into a multi-use item.
Inka developed ReSpool over the course of several months, participated in numerous internal pitch events and placed 3rd in the UNB APEX Startup Challenge elevator pitch. Furthermore, she was awarded the “Rising Star Award” at APEX, as the “emerging individual showing great potential to be an entrepreneur” in 2024. Shortly after, Inka was announced as the first recipient of the newly established Social Entrepreneurship Fund in collaboration with StFX Discover Box and entrepreneur/StFX alumni Alex Dorward.
Throughout the year, Inka was highly involved in Enactus StFX, led a new 3D printing project, assisted in the organization of the “Xccessible Minds” mental health music fundraiser and was awarded the “Positive Impact Award” for her valuable contribution to the team and the community. In April 2024, the first Innovation Challenge took place at StFX, in which Inka and her team won 1st place by developing the idea “NOVAMYNDS” – a platform summarizing all events taking place in your area – in order to make mental health services more accessible to all Nova Scotians.
Besides competitions, Inka is highly involved in the StFX and broader community. As an international student from Germany, she has instructed two German labs on campus and worked as a Statistics tutor as well as the group tutor for Financial Accounting. She was the Events Director of the Schwartz Women in Business (WIB) student society during the 2023/24 academic year and assisted an economics professor with her research studies. Inka has been involved in the Schwartz Business Society, the Investment Society, the International Student Society, the Boxing Society, the Outdoor Society, as well as participating in several entrepreneurship workshops throughout the years.
Following her entrepreneurial spirit, she has spent the last several months developing Echo Marketing, a student-led marketing agency at StFX, giving students the opportunity to work for real-life clients to put their skills to use, gain experience and build their portfolio. On the other hand, Echo delivers personalized, affordable marketing solutions to small businesses/ organizations. Together with her Co-President, Mikaela Williams, Inka has recruited and carefully selected a team of 16 students, split up into an executive and two project teams, each working for a different client during this semester. One Echo team is focusing on promoting Impact X to students from all over Atlantic Canada and capturing the event in November.
Another project Inka has been collaboratively working on is LEEP (Life skills and Entrepreneurship Education Program) a new society at StFX pursuing the goal of providing educational programs to students and communities. The programs will focus on the acronym L.I.F.E (Life skills, Information technology, Financial literacy, Entrepreneurship) and could include basics of car maintenance, renting vs. owning a home, how to run a business in university, basics of sewing, etc.
Beyond her extracurricular involvement, Inka – as a recipient of the “Schwartz School of Business International Scholarship” valued at $32,000 over 4 years – maintains high academic excellence, raking among the top 5 students within her business graduating year every year.
Outside of her involvement at StFX, Inka has been exploring many fields and worked with several startup companies, including Remote Power Sales Ltd, Seneca Shores Living, Rockillion Ltd and Main-Project enterprises Ltd.
Combining her experiences from different pitch competitions, workshops, business model development, working with startups, collaborating with students, forming and running new societies, and organizing events make her a well-rounded Co-Founder of IMPACT X.