The Clinic alumna Lianna Genovese celebrates five years of ImaginAble Solutions

By Eileen Hoftyzer

In the last five years, Lianna Genovese has turned a school project into a product used in hospitals, schools and homes in 22 countries, won dozens of pitch competitions and secured hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding for her start-company, ImaginAble Solutions. But she says that the highlight has been seeing the joy in the faces of people use her assistive technology device, Guided Hands.

“I get goosebumps every time I see Guided Hands being used,” says Genovese, a 2022 graduate of McMaster University’s Biomedical and Mechanical Engineering program. “It’s been an emotional journey watching something that I created impact people with disabilities across the world. Seeing the smiles and tears of joy from families as they watch their loved ones use Guided Hands to write or draw for the first time—to be able to finally hang something on their wall or fridge at home— hearing these stories has been the most rewarding part of this journey and what has fueled me for the past five years.”

Genovese was a first-year student when she developed Guided Hands for a course project. The idea came after she met a woman with dystonia, which caused her hands to involuntarily curl and prevented her from painting, a hobby she had loved.

Guided Hands provides hand support and allows users to guide a writing tool using their shoulder muscles, allowing users with limited hand movement to write, paint, draw and use a tablet. After developing the device for the course, Genovese began sharing it with people with disabilities to gather feedback and improve the product. These interactions fueled her passion for giving people with disabilities more independence and a greater quality of life.

At 19 years old, she decided to incorporate the company.

“I had no clue what running a company would be like. I’m a biomedical and mechanical engineer – I didn’t have any business background, just perseverance and the passion to help others,” she says. “That’s when I really had to develop my business foundation.”

Genovese turned to incubator programs, including the Residency @ The Clinic, which was particularly helpful given its focus on health innovations. Mentors at The Clinic – notably Karen Scraba – helped Genovese determine the steps to bring the product into the market and provided support in developing partnerships with hospitals to pilot and, eventually, purchase the product.

“The Clinic was instrumental in both my personal and company’s growth,” says Genovese. “Karen was an exceptional mentor who truly instilled in me the qualities of an entrepreneur. She believed in me and my vision, teaching me to be bold and that asking for help is never a sign of weakness—lessons that have been crucial to my company’s success.”

Over the next few years, Genovese participated in and won dozens of pitch competitions, using the prize funding to build her business. She launched pilot projects with hospitals and rehabilitation facilities across Canada and the United States and brought the product to market once she graduated in 2022.

Additionally, Genovese started working at The Clinic, helping to develop and facilitate the Health Innovation Bootcamp program, a six-week program for students, physicians and researchers to learn the tools to transform their business idea into a company. She used her experience in launching her start-up and participating in pitch competitions to coach other participants in the bootcamp and residency programs. She  also taught the medical device prototyping course in the Master of Biomedical Innovation program.

“It was really rewarding to give back to The Clinic and help the next generation of health innovation entrepreneurs,” she says. “I was excited to help them perfect their pitch and use storytelling to make people connect with the problem and see the life-changing technology they’re developing.”

In recent years, Genovese has won multiple awards, including the James Dyson Award Canada in 2021, Innovation Award from Global Student Entrepreneur Awards in 2021, and Forbes 30 Under 30 Local Toronto in 2023.

Now fulltime CEO of ImaginAble Solutions and employing a team of eight, she sees her company not only as a manufacturer of a product, but also a way to give people with disabilities a voice. In the next five years, Genovese would like to see a Guided Hands device in every school in Canada and used in hospitals and rehabilitation centres in every country around the world.

“People with disabilities are an underrepresented community, and Guided Hands helps to give them a voice,” she says. “I’m proud to making rehabilitation and education accessible for all and use our company as a platform to showcase the potential of people with disabilities.”