From UVic Grad To Business Owner - Instantly

University of Victoria engineering students are being given a unique opportunity to graduate with a master’s degree and a stake in a successful business.

The four students participating in the Engineering Entrepreneurship@UVic pilot project have completed the first eight months of coursework - a combination of graduate-level engineering and MBA entrepreneurial studies - and are ready to spend the next three semesters in Ottawa working with executives at Wesley Clover, a world-class investment company, to choose a high-tech business opportunity.

Today, the Governments of Canada and British Columbia, the Alacrity Foundation (formed by Wesley Clover and the British Columbia Innovation Council), the University of Victoria and the MITACS Accelerate Program announced their financial support for the Engineering Entrepreneurship@UVic program, thus ensuring its permanent place on the UVic landscape.

“It’s a pull versus push model,” explains Dr. Thomas (Ted) Darcie, the UVic electrical engineering professor who helped develop the pilot. “We’re pulling the need from the customer and building a solution rather than pushing a product from the lab to the marketplace without a firm customer.”

This model ensures student and business success by leveraging established business relationships and promoting partnerships between fledgling and established companies in the Wesley Clover portfolio. The company takes a hands-on, active investor role in working to build new companies and has successfully “hatched” numerous ventures using this incubator approach.

“This is an unprecedented opportunity for students. They’re meeting weekly with Owen Matthews, executive vice president of Wesley Clover. They’re connected to very successful local business leaders who are eager to coach them. Nowhere else can students access a professional network like this,” says Darcie.

In 2009, Wesley Clover founder and chair Sir Terence Matthews was named the Faculty of Business’ Distinguished Entrepreneur of the Year. The annual award acknowledges an inspirational entrepreneur who has had a significant and positive impact on the global community through his or her business leadership.

The first team of students will graduate in May 2011 with a Master of Applied Science and a diploma in entrepreneurship, and equity in a business they helped form. Applications are now being taken for the September 2010 class of Engineering Entrepreneurship@UVic. For more information visit www.ece.uvic.ca/~eemp/start/ or http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2010STED0014-000615.htm

 

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