About Westside Union

Founded in 2009, Westside Union is a business-solutions and concept-to-product partner. We help organizations solve operational challenges, design tailored business systems, and transform promising concepts into market-ready products. Bringing together experience in strategy, design, software engineering, physical AI, prototyping, and manufacturing, we work alongside our clients from initial idea to deployment and continuous improvement.

Our Journey

Founded
2009

Founded

Westside Union was founded in 2009 by Jacky Ho and Jerry Schuman as a multidisciplinary design studio dedicated to solving business and customer-experience problems through clear design and strategic thinking.

Rebranding & Digital Solutions
2013

Rebranding & Digital Solutions

Westside Union expanded its engineering and technical capabilities, developing cloud-based software platforms and prototyping services across digital and physical domains.

R&D & Systems Engineering
2014

R&D & Systems Engineering

Westside Union established dedicated R&D initiatives, exploring the intersection of secure communication software, hardware prototyping, and distributed system architectures.

Project Bio Union & Smart Hardware
2015

Project Bio Union & Smart Hardware

Venturing into connected health technology, Westside Union developed smart garment prototypes for cardiac monitoring, integrating sensor data with automated reporting to improve patient care and clinical follow-ups.

Spatial Systems & Interactive Displays
2016

Spatial Systems & Interactive Displays

The team engineered large-scale interactive display systems with integrated gesture sensors, advancing our capabilities in sensing technologies and physical-world interaction.

Global Industry Presentation
2017

Global Industry Presentation

Westside Union presented research on connected wearable health technology at the MEDICA Connected Health Forum, leading to expanded health-tech initiatives in San Francisco and Toronto.

Distributed Systems & Standards
2018

Distributed Systems & Standards

Building on years of distributed computing research, founder Jacky Ho participated as a founding member of the Taiwan Blockchain Self-Regulatory Organization, contributing to balanced frameworks for emerging technology.

Sensor Systems & Public Health
2021

Sensor Systems & Public Health

During Textile Innovation Week, the team demonstrated how wearable sensor systems and data monitoring can assist in health tracking and proactive operational response.

Strategic Expansion & Physical AI
2025

Strategic Expansion & Physical AI

With headquarters in Toronto and a presence in San Francisco, Westside Union consolidated its 16 years of multidisciplinary expertise into a focused business-solutions and concept-to-product practice, delivering intelligent software platforms, physical AI, and manufacturing-backed solutions.