Founders · MMVI

Built by operators,
not by a deck.

SmarterUni is a small group of people who have shipped inside hospitals, colleges, AI infrastructure and modern go-to-market — and have run out of patience waiting for the credential layer to catch up.

Founders
5
HQ
Toronto
Disciplines
5
Decade
MMVI
01 · Founding CEO
Stylized editorial portrait of Elijah Royaie, Founder & CEO
Stylized portrait

Elijah Royaie

Founder & CEO · Toronto, Canada

"Architect of the operating system."

Elijah is a full-stack engineer and AI systems architect who has spent the last decade building production infrastructure for healthcare networks, education systems and consumer products — including AI deployments across 25+ hospitals and the platforms powering Motivd.ai and Wellnuality.

He started SmarterUni after watching the same pattern repeat across every institution he worked inside: the curriculum lags the work, the credential lags the curriculum, and the student pays the difference. SmarterUni is his attempt to collapse that gap into a single public artifact — proof of doing the work, signed by the brand that needs it.

Founder
Motivd.ai · Motivd Media
Faculty
Applied Cybersecurity · Richmond Hill College
Stack
AI systems · platforms · automation
Co-Founders

The bench.

Each co-founder owns a layer of the system. The credential only works if engineering, partnerships, academia, growth and learning design all push in the same direction.

Stylized editorial portrait of Ghazaleh Ghasemi, Co-Founder · Learning Experience
02 · Co-Founder · Learning Experience

Ghazaleh Ghasemi

Toronto, Canada

"How a cohort actually feels."

Ghazaleh leads learning experience and student wellbeing — the part of the platform that decides whether a student actually finishes a track or quietly drops off in week three.

Her background sits at the intersection of coaching, communication and applied psychology. At SmarterUni she designs the cohort rhythms, the feedback loops between mentors and learners, and the support systems that make a six-month commitment feel survivable.

Lead
Learning experience · cohorts
Background
Coaching · communication
Focus
Retention · student wellbeing
Stylized editorial portrait of Dr. Soheil Najafi Mehri, Co-Founder · Healthcare & Academia
03 · Co-Founder · Healthcare & Academia

Dr. Soheil Najafi Mehri

Richmond Hill, Canada

"The institutional bridge."

Dr. Najafi Mehri is a PhD nurse leader, educator and researcher who has spent his career inside the institutional layer SmarterUni is built to interoperate with: hospitals, colleges, accreditation bodies, scientific committees.

He chairs the scientific committee for Advancing Nursing & Healthcare: A Global Dialogue at Richmond Hill College and is the founder of AfraMedico. At SmarterUni he leads accreditation partnerships and the healthcare track portfolio — making sure the proof we issue is the proof institutions actually accept.

Credentials
PhD · MSN · RN
Founder
AfraMedico
Chair
Nursing & Healthcare · Toronto 2025
Stylized editorial portrait of Arvin Royaie, Co-Founder · Growth & Go-to-Market
04 · Co-Founder · Growth & Go-to-Market

Arvin Royaie

Toronto, Canada

"How brands actually arrive."

Arvin runs go-to-market. Before SmarterUni he spent four-plus years selling across AI implementation, business coaching and B2B SaaS — including time inside Google as an AI consultant — and generated over $1.3M in pipeline building modern GTM systems.

At SmarterUni he owns the brand-side motion: which companies publish tracks, which hiring partners commit to interviews, and the operational machinery that turns a published track into a signed cohort.

Background
Ex-Google · AI consulting
Discipline
Full-cycle B2B AE · SaaS / AI
Owns
Brand partnerships · hiring loop
Stylized editorial portrait of Dr. Soheila Najafi Mehri, Co-Founder · Research & Curriculum
05 · Co-Founder · Research & Curriculum

Dr. Soheila Najafi Mehri

Canada

"Curriculum as a research artifact."

Dr. Soheila Najafi Mehri leads research and curriculum design. She brings the academic rigour SmarterUni's tracks need to stand up next to traditional credentials — outcome frameworks, assessment methodology, longitudinal measurement of where graduates actually land.

Her job is to make sure each track teaches what it claims to teach, and that we can prove it with data twelve months after the cohort ends.

Focus
Research · curriculum · assessment
Owns
Outcome measurement framework
Question
Did the track actually work?
Working with us

Build a track. Hire from the proof.

If you are a brand, a hospital, a college or a hiring team and any of the above sounds like the kind of credential layer you want to be on — talk to the founders directly.

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