Blog

Social entrepreneurship has a multitude of definitions and surrounding opinions. In my experience, there is one thing that everyone can agree on: social entrepreneurship is becoming more and more prominent in the Waterloo startup community.

In my two co-op terms as the Conrad Centre's Communications and Marketing Assistant, I have been fortunate enough to meet a number of social entrepreneurs that are taking the Waterloo ecosystem by storm.

If there’s one word that defined my short two-day adventure to New York, and the state of millennial marketing in the current day and age, it's "hustle."

I got into New York the day before the Youth Marketing Strategy conference and started doing some sightseeing. I made my way down to the Centre for Social Innovation in Chelsea, where I introduced myself as a student entrepreneur from Toronto!

Throughout my trip I met a number of entrepreneurs and interesting people from all over the world, with projects ranging from non-profits focussed on water conservation in the United States, to social enterprises, and on-demand radio providers.

Part of my responsibility as a co-founder of SparkGig during my winter 2014 Enterprise Co-op (E Co-op) term was to raise money, through student competitions, to help finance the SparkGig team.

When I started doing some research I was amazed at the number of student startup competitions out there.

While I completed my E Co-op term, SparkGig competed in eight competitions, in seven cities, across three countries. You are probably thinking that all of these plane tickets must have cost us a fortune! Well, one of the big advantages of being a student is that travel expenses are often included in part of the package.

Thursday March 27th was the first time I attended the Velocity Fund Finals (VFF). While I have previously heard about the event, I've always missed the pitch competitions.

At this term's VFF, ambitious Waterloo students pitched their startup ideas to a panel of judges to win funding. The VFF event was an exciting day with great opportunities for networking, enjoying our university's innovative and entrepreneurial culture, and learning about some of the amazing things fellow students are involved in.

Harry Gandhi, an Enterprise Co-op (E Co-op) and BET 300 student, recently traveled to Silicon Valley to attend Startup Grind 2014 and a "Biotech Business Bootcamp" as a semi-finalist in the OneStart Competition, the world's largest biotech idea competition.

As entrepreneurs, most of us will probably end up going to Silicon Valley at some point, whether it’s to meet potential investors, build relationships or learn about the "Valley mentality."

These are five main take-aways I learnt in my recent trip to Silicon Valley.

On Tuesday, January 28th, St. Paul's GreenHouse hosted a talk, Larry Smith presents, "So You Want to Change the World."

Victoria Suen, one of the Enterprise Co-op (E Co-op) students that attended the event, wrote about a few of her takeaways:

Have a big vision, expect more from yourself, consider the challenges you face, ask tough questions, develop your understanding, social enterprises are businesses.

I have been fortunate enough to go through Enterprise Co-op (E Co-op) this past term (January through April) and start my own business – ‘Counter Intuitive’. We distribute 1.5” thick glass countertops.  If you are wondering why you would ever want a countertop made out of glass, I suggest you check out the Counter Intuitive website! There were a number of lessons I learned along the way that I will share, as some of them may be helpful to you if you’re about to go through E Co-op, or just thinking of starting your own business.