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Quick answers
Who founded Top Hat?
Mike Silagadze and Mohsen Shahini. Top Hat's own company story says the two started it in 2009 in their small apartment just steps from the University of Waterloo.
What was his role at Top Hat?
Besides co-founding it, he was chief academic officer. A 2017 Top Hat blog post calls him the co-founder and chief academic officer when he accepted a Canadian startup-of-the-year award for the company. Kritik credits his work at Top Hat with helping the product reach more than 4 million students a year.
What is Kritik?
An edtech company he co-founded in 2019 with education researcher Carine Marette and tech executive Mark Deepwell. It started with software for assessing students' critical thinking. In a May 2026 BetaKit interview, he called trying to catch students using AI 'kind of a lost battle.' He said Kritik encourages transparency instead, and that the company had reached cash-flow break-even.
Is he still at Kritik?
Kritik's about page lists him as a co-founder, and a Kritik event page for November 2024 described him as its CEO and co-founder. BetaKit interviewed him about the company in May 2026. No current title is given here because none could be confirmed from a dated first-party source.