ASPER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
STU CLARK CENTRE FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP CELEBRATES 25 YEARS BY KRISTIN MARAND
Every successful business, regardless of industry or discipline, started as a spark. But even the brightest minds need support, encouragement and coaching.
At the University of Manitoba, students from all faculties can discover a path to entrepreneurship at the Stu Clark Centre for Entrepreneurship. In 2022, the SCCE is celebrating 25 years of sparking entrepreneurial spirit. In the current career climate, things are shifting so rapidly that innovation and creativity are a must. Resilience, collaboration and critical thinking are essential skills required to excel in work and life. These are all foundational elements of the entrepreneurial mindset that can be honed and applied to any line of work, whether you run your own business or work for someone else. The rising use of the term "intrapreneur" to denote someone who approaches working within an organization from an entrepreneurial point of view illus- trates how in demand this skill set has become. “We try to demystify what entrepreneurship really is, in a way that helps students understand how they may be able to consider it in their own life,” says Debra Jonasson-Young, I.H. Asper executive director of entrepreneurship. “We’re focused on helping students understand why it’s important. The competencies that you develop — in terms of innovation, creativity, public speaking, being able to develop business plans and conceptualize how a business might run — are all critical components of what we do.” The Stu Clark Centre for Entrepreneurship focuses on the early stages of entrepreneurial awareness development and contributes to the pipeline of broader economic development. Students inter- ested in exploring an entrepreneurial path are welcome to explore SCCE’s offerings, which include entrepreneurship education, events and competitions, a student entrepreneurship community, the ven- ture coach program, and connections to Manitoba’s entrepreneur- ship ecosystem.
Entrepreneurship education for U of M students can include courses in entrepreneurship and starting a business, as well as an entrepreneurship major under a bachelor of commerce or an MBA with an entrepreneurship and innovation theme. In addition, the Stu Clark Centre for Entrepreneurship also hosts New Venture competitions for graduate and undergraduate students and workshops for high school students. To date 1,250 students from across North America have participated in these competitions and more than $750,000 has been awarded to student ventures. In fact, in 2022, the first-place winner of the Stu Clark New Venture Cham- pionships: Graduate Edition was a local graduate student named Graham Taylor, who took home $20,000 to put towards his business Rogue Processing. The New Venture competition will be returning to an in-person format in 2023. Some of the SCCE’s key offerings are free biweekly webinars avail- able on its website and venture coaching. Venture coaching is a one- on-one holistic approach aimed to coach budding entrepreneurs through their journey. In 2023, the centre plans to launch a mentor- ship platform that will connect entrepreneurs with specific ques- tions to experts and peers in various fields for tactical meetings to drive their progress forward. This will allow the centre to serve many more students than is possible with a one-on-one model. “We are now working at developing that platform,” Jonasson-Young says. “The peer-to-peer concept is critical because that’s how you work in the business world and it does a marvellous thing — it encourages students from all faculties to communicate together. It provides students with a source of finding answers at no cost and also builds relationships for the future.”
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FROM LEFT: LINDSAY FRIESEN, AMY JONES, DEBRA JONASSON-YOUNG AND CARINE BADO FROM THE STU CLARK CENTRE FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP PHOTO BY DARCY FINLEY
15 WINTER 2022
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