Alumni Spotlight |
09/17/2026
Catching up with Abdulsalam Oladimeji ’21, recent graduate of the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM).
Oladimeji runs an automated property-services company in four cities, has published a book and spent his final undergraduate year founding an on-campus peer support group for male-identifying students at UTM.
Born in Nigeria, Oladimeji moved to Canada with his parents when he was around three years old, living here until 2016, when the family relocated to Saudi Arabia. He returned to Canada in 2019 to pursue the IB Diploma Programme at UCC, where his brothers, Nasrudeen ’22 and Hassan ’28, also attended.
He made the most of his time at the school, serving as co-president of the Black Excellence Society and president of Habitat for Humanity club while playing varsity football before the pandemic moved his classes online.
“When I first got to UCC, what I was immediately faced with was the calibre of students that were there,” he recalls. “Extremely smart, driven students, all working towards their own goals and passions. I used that same UCC mentality at U of T as well. That was the ignition, and then the fire was recognizing the opportunities that were there for me.”
He went to UTM intending to study medicine. “Curiosity has always pushed me into different fields that I find just particularly interesting,” he says. “My north star is essentially, how can you give back to communities, to show that you respect the fact that they invested this much into you?”
By the time he graduated this spring, he had an honours degree in biology and a minor in Professional Writing and Communications.
He wrote and published his book, Infinite Mirrors, with the guidance of a UTM professor. “It’s about the mirrors that we reflect in different rooms and spaces, and how that’s intrinsically human — but still being able to stay true to yourself,” he explains. “It was an opportunity for me to look back on the previous years I’d had, not only at UCC but my time at U of T, and largely Saudi Arabia and Canada as well.”
His research spanned two fields. In biology, his honours thesis, Geographic and Urban Influences on Dance-Fly Ornamentation, examined how geography and urban environments shaped the way one species evolved its ornamentation. In writing, Scaffolding or Substitute: AI in STEM Writing, grew out of an independent research course he took one-on-one with a professor and examined how academic writing is changing in an age of AI.
He also founded the Men’s Wellness Group at UTM, a peer support space for male-identifying students that he had noticed was missing on campus. The group grew into an active peer-support community of dozens of students.
In his second year, he started his first business after he and a roommate moved into their first rental unit and couldn't find anyone reliable to clean and maintain it. The result was Squeeky, an automated property-services company.
Today, the company screens home-service businesses on a five-point check of credentials, reputation and reliability, and works with vetted providers in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal. It was accepted into DMZ Basecamp, a summer program for university students run by the DMZ, TMU’s world-leading startup incubator, where it recently placed third in the program’s final pitch competition.
In April, weeks before he graduated, he received the Principal’s Award of Excellence in Student Leadership from UTM.
“It couldn’t have come at a better time,” Oladimeji notes. “It was practically the end of the semester, so it was a cap-off of everything I’d done at UTM. It felt good that the work was being recognized in some formal way.”
Asked what he would tell a UCC student today, he returns to a phrase he uses often.
“Always look at the north star — what is it that truly motivates you — and just go for that,” he says. “You will have obstacles along the way. It happens. It’s human.”
He looks back on the College as the place that first showed him what that pursuit could look like.
“Once you see what’s possible, it takes the dreaming out of it, because it’s already materialized in front of you,” he reflects. “UCC was great for that — exposing me to different individuals with different passions, and seeing what’s possible.”
