Urvish Patel
I'm Urvish Patel. I write The Ontario Money Brief, a two-minute read, twice a week, that explains insurance, everyday finance and investing in plain English for people who live and work in Ontario.
I didn't start in money. I spent most of a decade in technology: building software at RBC, The Home Depot and Loblaw Digital, teaching software engineering as a professor at Centennial College, and running Orbit 5, where I helped more than 1,000 international students and newcomers land interviews at companies like Scotiabank, TD and Intel.
That work showed me a pattern. Smart, hard-working people were making expensive money decisions because nobody had explained the rules: how a policy really works, why a premium suddenly jumps, what a TFSA is actually for, whether to pay down a loan or invest. Many of them were new to Canada, or managing it all on their own for the first time.
Today I work as a property and casualty (P&C) insurance broker in Ontario, so I hear these questions up close every day: about auto, home and business coverage, and about money more broadly.
So I started writing it down. Each issue of the Brief takes one real question and answers it in a couple of minutes, with the fine print translated. I bring an engineer's habit to it: break the problem down, check the numbers, and explain it so it actually makes sense.
The Brief is a publication, not a sales channel. Nothing here is a quote, an offer or personal advice. When I'm not writing, you'll find me on a trail, in a café, or watching cricket with a cup of chai.
From code to clarity.
A decade in technology and teaching, now spent making Ontario money make sense.
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2026 – now
P&C Insurance Broker Ontario
Working day to day with auto, home and commercial insurance, which is where many of the questions in the Brief come from.
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2025 – now
Writer and founder The Ontario Money Brief
Plain-English financial education for Ontarians: a twice-weekly newsletter plus short videos on LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.
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2025
Full Stack Developer Loblaw Digital
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2021 – 2025
CTO Orbit 5
Built tech training and career programs for international students. 1,000+ people coached into interviews at firms like Scotiabank, TD and Intel; 20+ technical workshops delivered.
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2021 – 2024
Software Developer RBC
Designed microservices and automation in banking operations, cutting manual processing by 40% and leading a QA team of six.
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2023 – 2024
Professor, Software Engineering Centennial College
Taught testing, automation and CI/CD with real-world projects and one-on-one mentoring.
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2021
Frontend Developer The Home Depot
Built reusable interface components and delivered a zero-downtime system migration.
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2019 – 2021
IT Trainer and Career Coach; Student Association President George Brown College
Coached students into their first Canadian jobs and represented them at provincial and national student federations.