From Engineer to Entrepreneur: The Leap That Changed Everything - Toronto - Canada's Entrepreneur

Anslem’s insights for engineering entrepreneurs are terrific. What it takes to step out of multi-national engineering companies to start up your own venture... so interesting.

Anselm Viswasam graduated from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) with a degree in Electrical Engineering and is a professional engineer licensed in the province of Ontario. He also holds an MBA in Technology Management and New Ventures Development, from Queens University, in Canada.

Anselm co-founded Hyperion in July 2015 – with the intention of developing the first implementation of a distributed sensing solution for the electric grid. Essentially, Hyperion brings assets to life by taking each of the elements that comprise a high voltage asset and adding intelligence to it. In essence, a smart grid is smart because it is made up of smart assets.

Prior to this, Anselm successfully led ABB’s Substation Automation Products Division for North America and in this role, he was responsible for sales of Transmission and Sub-transmission products to Utilities in Canada, the US, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. Anselm spent over 14 years at General Electric (Multilin – substation protection and control products) holding positions in engineering, operations, marketing and in new product development. He was an integral part of the team that developed the world’s first microprocessor protection relays – which are now ubiquitous across the power grid globally. He also worked in GE’s Wire & Cable group and developed cables for niche applications such as mineshaft power cable, cable buses and high performance fluid filled cable systems.

Anselm prides himself on being a true "international" Canadian. Born in Sierra Leone, West Africa to parents of ethnic Sri Lankan origin, his first ten years were spent growing up in Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Tanzania. After a short stint in boarding school in the United Kingdom, his father retired from the United Nations and moved back to Sri Lanka. The ensuing civil war in Sri Lanka forced Anselm and his parents to immigrate to Canada in 1989 – 35 years and counting as a Canadian!

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