Archives for November 2017

#NoEmptyPlates World Vision Challenge

November 28, 2017 by startGBC

The World Vision Social Innovation Challenge is an entrepreneurship competition for students and recent graduates that will support some of Canada’s most brilliant minds in creating market based solutions to some of the world’s most difficult development challenges.

The Social Innovation Challenge will provide students and recent graduates with an opportunity to develop their business ideas through providing ideation support, incubation through technical advisory services, seed capital, and the expertise of World Vision Canada to market test their solutions.

Competition Overview

The World Vision Social Innovation Challenge (the “Competition“) is sponsored by World Vision Canada (“WVC“) and is a student entrepreneurship challenge that aims to support some of Canada’s most brilliant minds in creating market-based solutions to some of the world’s most difficult development challenges.

This is a two-round Competition that will allow teams of 2 to 5 people (each a “Team“) to demonstrate market-based solutions to some of the world’s most difficult development challenges that will be faced over the next 5 to 10 years, regarding Food Security and Nutrition.

By participating in this Competition, every Team and member accepts these Rules and agrees to abide by and be bound by them.

Who is eligible to participate?

The competition is open to everyone, regardless of religion. To submit an Entry for the Competition and be eligible to win a Prize, all team members must, at the date of Entry, be:

A legal resident of any Canadian province or territory
Eighteen (18) years of age or older; and
Full-time or part-time student (at any level), or recent graduate (up to 2 years) who is registered at or attended a university, college or high school in any Canadian Province or Territory
Teams must:

after the Preliminary Round Close Date, not add, remove, or replace any Team members;

appoint a Team leader who will be the point-of-contact with WVC; and
if a registered business, charity, non-profit organization, or social enterprise:
not have received prior investment of more than $10,000;
not have been in operation for more than 3 years; and
bear the same name as that of such entity and shall not change its name during the course of the Competition.

The Competition is not open to employees of WVC, its affiliated organizations, advertising or promotional agencies or media partners, or members of the household of such employees.

See additional details about this in the Competition Rules and Regulations.

DEADLINE TO SUBMIT IDEA: APRIL 20, 2018

Learn more about this amazing contest here!

*If you are interested in participating in this challenge but cannot find a team, contact startgbc@georgebrown.ca. We will try to pair you with others.*

Ontario’s Social Enterprise Strategy 2016-2021

November 28, 2017 by startGBC

Accelerating the growth of Ontario’s social enterprise sector

Social enterprises use business strategies to achieve a social or environmental impact. While generating revenues from the sale of goods and services, social enterprises also expressly intend to create positive outcomes, and they measure their results. As their business grows, the social impact grows.

Across the province, social enterprises are reducing poverty, protecting the environment, and building stronger communities – all while creating jobs, growing revenues, and attracting investment capital. Ontario is home to approximately 10,000 social enterprises, businesses that are building solutions in the fields of inclusive employment, education, health, and environmental sustainability.

To accelerate the growth of the social enterprise sector, we are making significant commitments in 3 key areas:

Equipping social enterprises with solid business fundamentals. Building a strong foundation to serve the communities of today and tomorrow.
Connecting social enterprises to markets and capital to grow and scale.Unlocking new markets and capital to help maximize their potential.
Demonstrating the value of social enterprise and social finance. Promoting their potential to investors, government, and communities.

Ontario will invest more than $6 million in the first year of this renewed strategy.

“Social enterprises help Ontario attract and retain top talent, mobilize capital for community benefit, and satisfy demand for socially responsible goods. Ontario’s social enterprise strategy will leverage impact investment capital and the province’s existing entrepreneurship infrastructure to catalyze the development of sustainable and scalable social enterprises, creating more jobs for Ontario.”

– Brad Duguid, Minister of Economic Development and Growth

Building on Success

Ontario’s initial 3-year Social Enterprise Strategy achieved results. The government:

Invested $4 million in the Social Enterprise Demonstration Fund, creating over 125 jobs and retaining over 65 jobs during its first year, and leveraging over $6 million in additional investment into social enterprises
Launched the $4-Million Rate Drop Rebate Program, which is expected to help up to 1,100 people facing barriers to employment find jobs and support up to 550 businesses in accessing discounted rates on financial products
Invested in social entrepreneurs through the Ontario Social Impact Voucher Pilot, which provided $3,000 training and mentorship vouchers to 125 social entrepreneurs
Selected 2 leading Social Impact Bond ideas for further exploration and development, following a public call for ideas which garnered submissions from 79 organizations and involved input from a number of ministries

Ontario is committed to supporting a thriving marketplace of sustainable and scalable social enterprises that drive economic development while creating social and environmental impact. Ontario’s social enterprise strategy will accelerate the growth of this vital sector, positioning the province as a global leader in social enterprise and social finance by 2021.

Equipping social enterprises with solid business fundamentals

Objectives:

Increase access to mainstream entrepreneurship and business supports
Integrate specialized social entrepreneurship supports, such as impact measurement, into mainstream entrepreneurship programs

Feature Initiatives

ONE Social Enterprise Partnerships: Strengthening the capacity of the Ontario Network of Entrepreneurs (ONE) to support social enterprises by creating regional partnerships
Social Enterprise Demonstration Fund: Supporting the sustainability and growth of social enterprises by launching a second round of projects
Social Impact Voucher Program: Providing an additional 200 social entrepreneurs with vouchers to purchase value-added supports

”As a social enterprise that’s been in operation for 20 years, we know the importance of having strong business fundamentals. Social mission or not, successful businesses focus on delivering value for customers, developing strong financials and management as well as driving sales.”

– Heather Tremain, CEO, Options for Homes

Connecting social enterprises to markets and capital to grow and scale

Objectives:

Expand market opportunities for social enterprises through public sector procurement
Increase social enterprises’ access to private investment capital

Feature initiatives:

Social Enterprise Procurement Action Plan: Increasing the Ontario government’s procurement from social enterprises
Social Venture ConneXion: Supporting a platform that connects impact investors with investment-ready social enterprises
Social Venture Investment Fund: Designing and structuring a new fund to accelerate the flow of private investment capital to growing social enterprises
Removing legislative barriers to impact investing: Consulting on potential legislative amendments

“Mission-aligned private investors have played a critical role in helping CoPower scale up. We welcome the province’s efforts to support the mobilization of private capital for investment into social enterprises – businesses tackling critical social and environmental issues, including climate change.”

– Trish Nixon, Director of Investments, CoPower

Demonstrating the value of social enterprise and social finance

Objectives:

Promote the use of impact measurement tools among social enterprises to attract investor, government, and community support
Increase the Ontario government’s capacity to develop social enterprise and social finance initiatives

Feature initiatives:

Impact Measurement Task Force: Bringing sector leaders together to explore uniform impact measurement standards for social enterprises
Centre of Excellence in Social Enterprise and Social Finance: Leveraging social enterprise and social finance as tools to achieve policy objectives
Social impact bonds: Piloting one or more Social Impact Bonds in the province to improve social outcomes

Ontario’s social enterprise strategy incorporates the input of over 400 Ontarians – individuals from the non-profit, for-profit and public sectors, social entrepreneurs, academics, and others. They shared their ideas both online and in person during consultations hosted in Toronto, London, Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay, Sudbury, and Orillia. Community organizations and sector leaders co-hosted these consultations.

Facts

^{footnote 1[1]}

Employment

Ontario’s social enterprises employ an average of 38 staff.

Revenues

Ontario’s social enterprises generate an average of $1.2 million in revenues, including $0.9 million in sales.

Number

Ontario is home to approximately 10,000 social enterprises.

Focus

45% of Ontario’s non-profit social enterprises have a poverty reduction focus.

Social Enterprise Examples

Inclusive Employment

Social enterprises such as Building Up, Groupe Convex, CigBins, Options Printing, and Good Foot Delivery create training and employment opportunities for people facing barriers to the labour market.

Building Up trains and employs people facing barriers to the labour market to provide energy-efficient retrofits.

Education

Twenty One Toys, Forward Vision Games, Textbooks for Change, Jump Math, and Future Design School are social enterprises on a mission to improve learning outcomes for people of all ages.

Twenty One Toys designs and manufactures toys that teach 21st century skills, including empathy, failure, creative communication and collaboration.

Environment

SolarShare, KARIBU Solar Power, CoPower, and Fresh City Farms are some of the many social enterprises tackling various environmental challenges.

SolarShare develops commercial scale solar energy installations and provides opportunities for everyday Ontarians to invest in a renewable energy future.

Health

Social enterprises such as QoC Health, Eve Medical, Lucky Iron Fish, Plan A Health Care Staffing Solutions, and TranQool are improving health and wellness outcomes for under-served populations.

QoC Health partners with health care providers to develop technology-enabled and patient-centred products and services.

Connect with us

Learn more about how social enterprises are helping to create jobs, attract investment, and build vibrant communities, email the Social Enterprise Branch or follow us on twitter at @ONEBusinessca.

References

Source: CCEDNet, Enterprising Change (2015)

Updated: November 20, 2017

Published: June 21, 2016

Footnotes

footnote[1] Back to paragraph Source: CCEDNet, Enterprising Change (2015)

Original Source

Daniel Moneta at MaRS Mornings: Lessons learned from building an IoT startup

November 23, 2017 by startGBC

MMB Networks in Toronto currently has more than 40 employees, but the company began the way many startups do: with three friends working out of someone’s grandparents’ basement. As a result, they “did a lot of learning the hard way.” At October’s MaRS Mornings, Daniel Moneta, one of the co-founders at MMB, shared some of the valuable lessons he’s learned while building his business.

Experts in connectivity

The idea for MMB came about organically. Three friends were working together at a company that produced wireless thermostats for hotels that could be controlled remotely. Daniel referred to their time there as “a three-year experience in how not to run a startup.” The trio quickly realized that they understood the market better than the people they were working for, so they quit to start their own innovative venture.

Design and development was the first focus area for this newly formed company. Working on a contract basis for several clients, the team quickly gained a reputation as the only people in the market who knew how to integrate wireless technology into smart products. Connectivity was their speciality, and today MMB Networks is a leader in the Internet of things, using game-changing technology to bring smart connected products to market.

Throughout his journey with MMB, Daniel has transitioned from CEO to executive vice-president of corporate development and marketing, a move that has afforded him the time and freedom to focus more on the company’s vision and thought leadership. With the venture now on firm footing, Daniel has also had time to reflect on the advice he would offer to other entrepreneurs.

He shared the following insights with the MaRS Mornings’ audience in Toronto.

Trust your judgment. Whether it’s a negotiation, a hiring decision or an investment deal, if something doesn’t feel right it probably isn’t. As an entrepreneur living and breathing your business, you probably know more than you realize, so don’t underestimate yourself.
Hiring advice: recruit friends and true believers. Company culture is incredibly important and new entrepreneurs often don’t realize how easily and thoroughly you can create a good (or bad) one. Really consider your company culture as you hire staff and let them go, as staff who generate a negative atmosphere early on can be poisonous. Daniel’s strategy of getting staff to refer potential employees who they like and want to work with was more luck than intentionality, but it paid off. MMB created a really positive culture where people get along, and it did so accidentally. Further, you should be cautious when hiring part-time workers: as you grow, you’ll want employees who believe in your vision and who will be willing to commit full time.
Invest in investment and investors. Daniel expressed surprise at how often entrepreneurs consider the fact that they need to seek investment as a sign of failure. In fact, the opposite is true: seeking investment is an opportunity to create a partnership and a strategy to grow your business. In that spirit, it’s important for entrepreneurs to choose their investors wisely. It’s also crucial to start looking for investment well before you actually need it. This will give you a chance to build relationships and tell your story—and to do so without putting pressure on you or your potential investors. Seek out the right investors: ones who match your goals, timeframe and risk tolerance. Daniel and his team started working with MaRS early on, which helped them navigate the world of financing for the company.
Communicate, communicate, communicate. Once you find investors, ensure that you keep an open line of communication with them, particularly when you’re facing challenges. This is a good practice for people who trust you and who believe in you—that way, when you do need their help, it won’t be out of the blue and they’ll have a more balanced view of your situation.
The little things add up. One of Daniel’s more surprising tips was to invest in a points card and to sign up for every airline and hotel points program. By MMB’s third month of operations he had become keenly aware of just how much money businesses spend. Earning points on all of the company’s expenditures meant that half of their employees’ travel was covered and they could use gift cards to incentivize their team. On another note, Daniel encouraged entrepreneurs to hire a designer early on—“they can make you look more established than you are,” he said—and to pay more attention to social media.

Of all of the lessons that Daniel shared with the MaRS Mornings audience, perhaps the most pertinent was the importance of being part of a community of other entrepreneurs. According to Daniel, he and his co-founders learned a lot from talking to other people who were at the same stage as them, as well as from those at the “been there, done that” stage. While your peers may be bandwidth-constrained they are almost always willing to help.

SOURCE: https://www.marsdd.com/news-and-insights/daniel-moneta-at-mars-mornings-lessons-learned-from-building-an-iot-startup/

GlobalStart Voucher Program

November 23, 2017 by startGBC

The GlobalStart Voucher Program supports youth-led start-ups across Ontario that are engaged with CLAs/OCEAs and RICs that target Global Markets. Youth-led start-ups selected for this program will be placed with a host incubator/accelerator in the selected global market for three to six months. CLAs/OCEAs and RICs will nominate start-ups for this program. Preference is given to start-ups that demonstrate a reasonable chance of achieving sales, investment and/or partnerships as a result of the Voucher.

Selected start-ups must identify the accelerator/incubator in the country of choice during the application stage.

The GlobalStart Voucher Program aims to help Ontario-based, youth-led start-ups:

Immerse themselves in a selected global market through a three to four month placement with a host incubator/accelerator;
Develop strong business relationships that are only possible through sustained face-to-face interaction;
Gain first-hand knowledge of the opportunity within that market; and
Achieve tangible business goals in the selected global market outside of Canada and the U.S.A, such as:
- Sales,
- Investment, and
- Strategic partnerships

While preference is given to companies travelling to international markets outside of the U.S.A, travel to the U.S.A may be considered on a case-by-case basis where it will have significant impact on the company.

In order to apply for this program, you must be nominated by a Campus Lead Accelerator/Ontario Centre of Excellence Accelerator or a RIC. If you are interested, please contact startgbc@georgebrown.ca.

DEADLINE: All approved Global Start projects must be completed by March 31, 2018. Applicants must complete their travel to the host country before March 31, 2018; any expenses incurred thereafter will not be approved.

For more information on this program, click here.

I Am A Woman #WhyNotMe Panel Discussion Event

November 16, 2017 by startGBC

On November 19, 2017, startGBC hosted the I Am A Woman #WhyNotMe panel discussion to shed light on female entrepreneurship and its rise in celebration of Women’s Entrepreneurship week. Our guest panelists, Cynthia Florek, founder of The Trend Office, Lesley Hampton, founder and Creative Director of her own fashion line Lesley Hampton, and Nikole Goncalves, creator of Healthnutnutrition.ca, discussed their journey into entrepreneurship, as well as the obstacles they overcame as entrepreneurs and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.

When asked how these ladies were able to fund their business, Nikole Goncalves, founder of HealthNutNutrition.ca, was frank with her answer. “I knew very early on that if I wanted to do my business full-time, I would have to work a [salaried] job as well,” she said. Nikole Conclaves worked as a digital marketing coordinator at a large telecommunications company before she switched over to working on her YouTube channel and brand full-time. However, in the beginning stages of her business, she recalls not making any money for the first few years, sharing that the first dollar she made from her YouTube channel was a big deal for her. “I could buy a cup of coffee,” she laughed.

When asked what their biggest mistake as entrepreneurs was, Lesley Hampton, Founder and Creative Director of her own fashion line Lesley Hampton, shared that her biggest mistake was not delegating. She explained that as her brand grew, she struggled with delegating tasks so as to not overwhelm herself with all the work that needed to be done. Nicole Conclaves explained that her mistake was treating her YouTube Channel as more of a hobby than a career. Instead of treating it like a job, her initial pursuance of her YouTube Channel was more hobby-driven. She, of course, learned from this, taking the necessary actions needed to put a plan together to achieve the goals she has set for herself.

When asked what they had wish they had known when they first started as entrepreneurs, Cynthia Florek, founder of The Trend Officer, gave a comforting response. “That you don’t need all the answers upfront.” When asked by an audience member how she stays creative, she answered: “Different experiences is what sparks creatvity.”

We thank these three amazing women for joining us for our ‘I Am A Woman’ #WhyNotMe panel discussion and sharing their wisdom and experiences with us. If you’d like to read a transcription of the whole panel session, stay tuned! We will be releasing that soon.

Archives for November 2017

Daniel Moneta at MaRS Mornings: Lessons learned from building an IoT startup

Experts in connectivity

He shared the following insights with the MaRS Mornings’ audience in Toronto.

GlobalStart Voucher Program

I Am A Woman #WhyNotMe Panel Discussion Event

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Upcoming Events

Cooperation 2019

Cybersecurity Higher Education Contest 2019

People in Cyber Conference

TechTO October Edition

Entrepreneur Interview Panel

Archives for November 2017

Accelerating the growth of Ontario’s social enterprise sector

Building on Success

Equipping social enterprises with solid business fundamentals

Objectives:

Feature Initiatives

Connecting social enterprises to markets and capital to grow and scale

Objectives:

Feature initiatives:

Demonstrating the value of social enterprise and social finance

Objectives:

Feature initiatives:

Facts

Social Enterprise Examples

Inclusive Employment

Education

Environment

Health

Connect with us

References

Footnotes

Experts in connectivity

He shared the following insights with the MaRS Mornings’ audience in Toronto.

Join our Newsletter to get a FREE Business Model Canvas !

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Upcoming Events

Join our Newsletter to get a
FREE Business Model Canvas !