I wanted to put out in the blogosphere a recent initiative at the University of Ottawa that has been getting some pretty good traction and making a difference, in a different kind of way. The Startup Garage is a student entrepreneurship initiative that allows us to encourage students to take three months during the summer and create, or build upon, a new company. We ran the program as a pilot in 2010 and supported three companies (9 students) and this year we ran the program as a competitive opportunity for students to build an execution plan and compete before a panel of external business reviewers from across Canada and abroad. We are pleased that this year we again have three companies nestled in our "garage" and each of them is well on their way to achieving the goals they outlined in their action plans back in May. What does our office provide? Each company gets $18,000, access to a dedicated space in our offices, access to our staff, access to our "On Call Entrepreneur" and the opportunity to have all of its members attend our lunch and learn sessions on legal issues, book keeping and accounting, business development and customer traction and raising capital. We are excited about launching the 2012 competition on September 20, 2011 here in Ottawa at which time we will be laying the groundwork for up to 8 companies to access all of the above as well as $20,000 each during next summer. Stay tuned and if anybody has any questions or comments about these types of programs, feel free to drop me a line.
Cheers,