By MYRON LOVE Winnipegger Adam Fainman is taking the world by storm. In fewer than three years his new AI start-up – Moonlite Labs – has attracted thousands of users in 550 cities in 95 countries world wide.
 
As he explained in an interview in the Winnipeg Sun last June, Moonlite Labs is “a creative content platform designed to make multimedia storytelling radically more accessible. With a few prompts,” he noted, “users can generate professional grade videos, animations, voiceovers, talking avatars, music-reactive visuals, and more.”
 
On Tuesday, February 24, the young entrepreneur garnered his newest accolade when Winnipeg-based North Forge, Canada’s only start-up incubator, accelerator and fabrication lab, gave Fainman its DARE Emerging Innovator Award at a reception at the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada.
 
“I dedicated the award to my zaida, Jacob T. Schwartz,” Fainman says, noting that his zaida was a prominent computer scientist and professor of Computer Science at the New York University Courant Institute of Mathematical Science, and founder, in 1964, of New York University’s Department of Computer Science – which he chaired for 16 years.

At the awards evening, Fainman adds, he had the opportunity to meet many of the movers and shakers in the industry here.
 
The son of Shane and Rachel Fainman began his life in Toronto. “My father is from Winnipeg, my mother from New York.  They met in the Sinai Desert at a music festival.”
 
The family moved to Winnipeg in 2006 when Adam was in high school.  After graduating from the University of Winnipeg Collegiate he went on to earn a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Winnipeg.
 
“Performing was always my first love” he says.
 Post university, he began a career as a rapper, beatboxer, and producer under the stage name Beatox, touring across Canada and central Europe with his rare ability to combine story-telling and singing.
 
In 2015, he enrolled in a two-year digital media and design program at Red River Community College. After graduation, on the encouragement of a University of Toronto professor, he continued his studies in Toronto earning a Masters Degree in Music Technology and Digital Marketing.
 
“During the Covid shutdown,” he recounts, “I began experimenting with AI and producing music videos combining music, story-telling and animation.  I posted them on social media sites such as YouTube and TikTok. They went viral, garnering millions of views.  People were asking me if I could help them with creating similar videos.  I saw there was a gap in accessibility to this technology, so I decided I should create a platform as a solution”
 
“A friend of mine, Brayden Bernstein was involved in the tech scene in Winnipeg, saw the success I was having on TikTok and gave me some advice on how to go about this” Fainman continues.  “As well, a few colleagues from the University of Winnipeg expressed interest in building a solution together.”
 
Wanting to create a platform that would make it easy for others to replicate what he was doing, Fainman sought out resources in Winnipeg that might be able to help him.
 
He pitched his idea first to NRC-IRAP (National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program), Canada’s leading innovation assistance program for small and medium-sized businesses,
 
“They loved the concept and traction I was getting, and agreed to help fund us,” Fainman says.
  
His next stop was North Forge – in 2024 – where Moonlite joined their Ascent Program and was matched with mentors.
 
In early 2025,  Moonlite Labs made its official debut at the Manitoba AI Innovation Showcase where the new company was greeted with an award. “It was a massive confidence boost,” Fainman told the Sun in that earlier interview. “It was our first time sharing with the public what we’ve been up to for the last year. To win the award… that was very, very rewarding.”
Last June, the company made its presence known on the international stage at VivaTech 2025 in Paris — Europe’s largest startup and tech conference, with over 180,000 visitors.
Moonlite was selected as one of TechCrunch’s Top 30 Startups of the Year, a shortlist that included only two Canadian companies.

“Getting the AI Showcase award, getting into VivaTech, being selected as one of the top 30 startups of the Year by TechCrunch, that was pretty crazy,” Fainman told the Sun.“Backed by ScaleAI, Moonlite joined Canada’s official delegation at VivaTech, which had special visibility this year with Canada named Country of the Year at the conference.
“We had a massive space. The French president came through our whole area. It was the craziest thing,” Fainman recalled. “Everyone had their phones. It was like a mob… then we’re like, oh my God, it’s the French president. People were freaking out.”
 
As per the Sun story, Fainman was given two days to showcase Moonlite, with a booth for both the platform’s business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) offerings. But the most personal moment came on stage, where he delivered a presentation showcasing his journey from beatboxing artist to tech founder. 

With Moonlite Labs growing exponentially, Faiman and his team of eight are hoping to become as ubiquitous as Adobe and Canva.  “My ultimate goal is to help as many people as possible to create professional-grade videos and ultimately share their stories,” he comments.
 
He himself, he adds, is hoping to get back to live performances as well.  “I recently appeared at Festival du Voyageur and I have just completed my 4th studio album.  I can’t wait to use Moonlite for all my videos and world building” he reports.
 
Readers who might want to try Moonlite for themselves can go to https://moonlitelabs.com
You can get in touch with Adam Fainman at adam@moonlitelabs.com

By MYRON LOVE Last October, the husband and wife team of Richard Morantz and Sheree Walder donated $1 million towards the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue’s ongoing capital campaign.  Last month, the couple followed up with an equally generous donation – this time to the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, to establish a new degree program in real estate through the Hebrew University’s business school.
“We are long time supporters of the Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University,” notes Walder, who is a lawyer and former partner in the firm Myers LLP.
“We had funded some smaller projects at the Hebrew University, adds Morantz, the president and CEO of Globe Property Management, one of Canada’s leading privately-held residential real estate firms.
(Globe was founded in the 1920s  by Richard’s grandfather, Morris.  Richard became the company’s sole shareholder in the mid-1990s after buying out his father Saul, and his siblings. Under Richard’s leadership, the company has expanded steadily and strategically, acquiring and developing real estate almost every year for the past three decades. Over the last 30 years, he has built an impressive and diverse portfolio, which includes over 8000 residential and commercial properties, particularly notable given that Globe remains privately owned and independently operated.
“Two years ago, we approached the (Hebrew) University about doing something more impactful.  Since I am a businessman in real estate, we wanted to work on a project with the business school.”
The first fruits of the relationship between  Richard and Sheree and the university was the establishment the annual Richard Morantz Real Estate Symposium in the Hebrew University Business School (HUBS) MBA Program.
“I was able to attend the most recent symposium in November,” Morantz reports.  “I wanted to see for myself how this was working.”
Morantz also used the occasion to arrange – with the help of CFHU executive director (and former executive director of the JNF office here) Rami Kleinmann – a meeting with HUBS officials about building on the symposium and creating a new MBA program at the university.
The Richard Morantz Major in Real Estate and Finance, in the words of Business School President Dr. Orly Sade, “will, together with traditional academics, feature non-academic practitioners and leaders in all aspects of the real estate industry, providing students an opportunity to expand their professional networks, while gaining real-world industry insights and bridging the gap between theory and practice.
In a press release issued on February 24, Seade added that “this investment is a defining moment in the evolution of the school.  The importance of an academic discipline focused solely on the real estate sector has significantly increased, owing to an understanding of the sector’s unique position in the global economy and international finance. HUBS consistently ranks within the top five business schools in Eurasia & the Middle East. The addition of this major will further elevate HUBS academic offerings, and the annual symposium will help expand the Hebrew University and Israel’s footprint as a global hub for intellectual exchange in the sector, drawing diverse professionals from around the world, fostering cross-border collaboration, increasing visibility, and contributing to the potential to attract top-level investors.”
 
Kleinmann further pointed out that “Richard’s comprehensive industry knowledge, combined with his dedication to Israel and the University, has resulted in an innovative academic program that, combined with the Symposium, is setting a new benchmark for industry education. We are all extremely grateful and look forward to the outcomes.”
As reported in the Jewish Post in relation to the couple’s donation to the Shaarey Zedek, Morantz noted that it was the Hamas-led assault on Israel and subsequent tsunami of antisemitism worldwide that prompted Richard and Sheree to consider stepping up and contributing to the Shaaray Zedek campaign in such a magnanimous way.
“I have never been a religious person,” Morantz remarked. “While I may be more secular, I strongly believe in the traditions of Judaism. I had a charmed upbringing in the 60s and 70s in River Heights. It is not the case that I experienced no antisemitism, but those experiences were very minimal. Post-October 7th, I found myself, for the first time in my life, having to judge every situation and every person I came across before divulging the fact that I am Jewish or discussing Israel. I came to the realization, during the process of considering this donation, that a primary driver for us is that this synagogue is a safe place for Jews, where we can comfortably be ourselves.”
Walder pointed out that, while her mother’s large family were Jewish pioneers, her father was a Romanian Holocaust survivor, with almost no family after the war. “Family matters a great deal to us,” she said, “in addition to strongly agreeing with Richard that the tragedy of October 7th and continuing and growing antisemitism are big drivers for us in making these donations.”
“There will be an event celebrating the new MBA program at the Hebrew University’s Board of Governors meeting in June,” Morantz says.  “We are looking forward to attending.”

By MYRON LOVE Many readers of a certain age will no doubt remember the late Oscar Grubert. In their day, he and his long time partner, Bill Goldberg, had an outsized presence in Winnipeg’s foodservice industry and beyond.
While Grubert eventually left Winnipeg for Toronto – and passed away in 2014, his fellow restaurateurs here have not forgotten him. On Thursday, February 19, Grubert, the founder of Champ’s Kentucky Fried Chicken in Winnipeg, was one of three local restaurateurs who were inducted into  the two-year-old Manitoba Restaurant  and Food Services Association  Hall of Fame.
Grubert’s fellow inductees this year were Silver Heights Restaurant and Lounge’s Jimmy Siwicki and Richard Enright, who brought the Boston Pizza franchise to Manitoba.)
 “It was a lovely evening,” reports Grubert’s daughter, Beth.  “I worried  that – considering how long ago he left Winnipeg – people would have forgotten about him. This gala evening was an opportunity for people to get to know him again.
” What made the evening even more meaningful is that the other inductees remembered and were able to reminisce with me about my dad.”
In speaking of her father being inducted into the Hall of Fame, Beth Grubert noted that she “was also overwhelmed by the sheer number of noteworthy events in Oscar’s very big life. He built businesses. He built partnerships. He built friendships that lasted decades. And he built a family that is still trying to keep up with his ideas.”
As she recounted, it all began for best friends Grubert and Goldberg with the opening of Champ’s Drive-In on north Main Street – in partnership with Meyer Gilfix, in 1958. (Gilfix left the partnership when Grubert and Goldberg took on the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise.)  (Drive-in restaurants were the place to go and hang out on a Saturday evening the late 1950s and 60s, anyone of a certain age might recall.)
Beth Grubert described her father and Bill Goldberg as true partners. “They complemented each other in almost every way,” she said.  “They had a beautiful friendship and partnership until the day Bill passed away suddenly in 1994. Bill Goldberg was a wonderful man.”
She reported that the partners signed on with the iconic Colonel Harlan Sanders in 1958 with just a hand shake.  “Why would a lawyer like my dad decide that was a good idea?,” she queried. “The answer is clear if you really knew my dad. He was fearless. He had the truest entrepreneurial spirit. And he lived for the excitement of something new. As he built Kentucky Fried Chicken across Manitoba, he and Bill forged friendships and alliances across the country with fellow franchisees and restaurateurs.”
At its peak, she continued. Champs Kentucky Fried Chicken operated 24 stores, including outlets in Emerson and Grand Forks. “As the franchise grew and there was high demand for chicken,” she recalled, “my dad figured out that his chicken suppliers couldn’t keep up. So, as was his way, my dad decided to buy a chicken farm in Neepawa.  Even after the franchise was sold, we still owned that chicken farm.”
 
Among those who sampled Champ’s Kentucky Fried Chicken, Beth recounted, was Queen Elizabeth – who received buckets of chicken on her train as she traversed the country – along with Princess Margaret and Princess Anne.
“KFC in 1958 was the foundation for everything that followed,” she pointed out.  “The Colonel really was a part of our lives. He came to my brother (Nolan)’s bar mitzvah. Growing up for me, he was always a presence. There’s a picture of our family in our backyard with the Colonel.   KFC is still part of my very being. So, many years after my dad sold his franchise back to Pepsi — everything they did, any bad marketing campaign, any good marketing campaign, we took it personally. We sang jingles in our house, we lived and breathed it.”
Champs, though, was only the beginning of Oscar Grubert and Bill Goldberg’s soon to be burgeoning efforts on behalf  of Winnipeggers seeking new dining experiences. Some of the 33 other – better known restaurants – and restaurant chains, the duo opened over the years included: Mother Tucker’s downtown, Koko’s steak house,  Thomas Buttons,  H Salt Fish  and Chips, and Grubee’s. (Beth said she still has her orange and brown polyester uniform and hat from Grubee’s), the Garden Creperie Butcher, The Rec Room, Mama Trossi’s , Carlton Street Fish Market, and the Palomino Club.
Grubert, Beth noted, early on also became an active member of the Manitoba Restaurant Association, which led to his election as president. In 1970 he became president of the Canadian Restaurant Association. “That was a very busy year in our household,” she recalled. “Our parents travelled all over Canada. The year was marked by advocacy, meetings with fellow restaurateurs, businessmen, politicians, and even celebrities. There were a lot of formal dinners that year. Connections and friendships were made and endured for years to come.
“My dad continued to work hard,” she reminisced.  “As Champs became more established, my dad wanted to expand his horizons — to try new concepts and to really allow his creativity to shine. We called those “the crazy years.” There was so much going on. So many wonderful people – and for me it was the most fun and exciting childhood one could ever have experienced.”
Her dad though would always bristle at being referred to as the “restaurant king” or “czar,” Beth noted.  “While restaurants were one of his passions, there was a lot more to him than that. There was passion for his family, his faith, his community, and his philanthropy. Passion creates leaders — and he led. He led by volunteering his time and donating to the causes he believed in. He was a proud Jewish man, and he would want you to know that. He was honoured and recognized for his contributions to the business community and Jewish community throughout his life. Each time he was grateful and overwhelmed by that recognition. “
“My dad loved Winnipeg,” Beth concluded. “ He loved Manitoba. Even when he moved to Toronto later in life, this was home. The restaurants, the people, the association, the conversations — this community shaped him, and he helped shape it in return. Everyone knew him. He shook hands when contracts were a page long. He believed that restaurants were about more than food — they were about gathering, about energy, about hospitality.
“This honour would have embarrassed him slightly —but I think we can agree it was well deserved. On behalf of our family — my children Julia and Micah, my brother Nolan, his wife Carol and their family, and all of us who grew up in and around those kitchens and dining rooms — thank you to the Manitoba Restaurant Association for recognizing Oscar’s contribution.”
Incidentally, the restaurant business has continued into the second generation –with Beth operating Baked Expectations – a restaurant which she opened in Osborne Village in 1983 – while Nolan worked closely with their father for many years in Winnipeg and then in Toronto and was really his partner after Bill Goldberg passed away.