VeloCity launches campus-wide entrepreneurship program

The University of Waterloo has focused on entrepreneurship for many years. In conjunction with our co-op program, our students receive a rare experiential learning component. The university’s Enterprise Co-op program encourages students to take their learning even further. E Co-op gives Waterloo students the unique opportunity to navigate their way through starting a business while simultaneously earning a co-op credit.

Students at Waterloo have many other opportunities to get involved with entrepreneurship on campus, from the Conrad Business Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre to the VeloCity Residence. But as of yet, there has not been entrepreneurial programming available to all students on campus. We recognized that students need the opportunity to:

• Get involved with entrepreneurship in a broad way that would provide them an overview about starting a business
• Provide students with a platform to learn more about starting a business and to dip their toes into entrepreneurial waters without having to fully commit.

Ideas 2 Entrepreneurship (I2E) by Diana Wong, Lorena Chan and Mike Rolfe, University of Waterloo Engineering students, with the help of the VeloCity team set this idea of entrepreneurship all across campus into motion in January 2012. After much testing and reorganizing, this initial idea has transformed itself into VeloCity's new program, VeloCity Campus starting this September.

VeloCity Campus will consist of multiple events open to all University of Waterloo Students with any level of interest in entrepreneurship throughout the semester. We'll start things off with a launch event during Welcome Week with a panel discussion. The panelists, all with backgrounds in entrepreneurship, will answer students' startup questions. Then we'll have a Design Thinking Workshop, where students can brainstorm business ideas and think more about turning these ideas into viable businesses. We’ll also hold a five-hour Startathon which will allow students to get into teams and prepare a pitch of their company. Additional upcoming events amongst many others will focus on:

• Creating a business model
• Managing finances
• Pitching professionally

At the end of the term, there will be two Pitch Night Socials. The judges of Pitch Night Socials will pick who gets to move on to the VeloCity Demo Day, which is a great opportunity to gain exposure to the University of Waterloo campus as well as VeloCity stakeholders.

Join us and take part in these events so that we can help students realize that learning can and should consist of more than just textbooks, lectures and exams.