Laila Burns

CRO & Co-Founder, Sielo Robotics. Laila Burns is an award-winning entrepreneur, engineering student, and co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Sielo Robotics, an Ottawa-based company developing AI-powered assistive robotic devices. She co-founded the company at 19 years old after meeting two young women with severe mobility limitations through a university engineering project, inspiring the creation of Arlo, an affordable wheelchair-mounted robotic arm designed to help people with limited upper-body mobility complete everyday tasks more independently. Laila has helped Sielo raise more than $1 million in investment and secure hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants and non-dilutive funding, while leading fundraising, commercialization, finance, partnerships, and community engagement. Her work has been recognized through numerous awards, including second place in Enactus Canada’s National Student Entrepreneur Competition, the Desjardins Elevator Pitch Award, the Claude Laguë Entrepreneurial Student Award, second place in the University of Ottawa Engineering Concept Competition, and multiple first-place University of Ottawa Design Day awards.