NEWS RELEASE
GEORGIAN COLLEGE
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Over a hundred eager Simcoe County teens descended onto the Barrie Campus of Georgian College on May 31 to learn more about innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship in a fun one-day Generation-Innovation boot camp.
The ultimate goal of the Innovation, Creativity and Entrepreneurship (ICE) camp was to instill an entrepreneurial way of thinking for all attendees.
The students, coming from both public and separate school boards in Simcoe County, attended the camp which was led by the MaRS Discovery District. Located in Toronto, MaRS brings educators, researchers, social scientists, entrepreneurs and business experts together under one roof.
ICE included interactive workshops incorporating ideation and rapid prototyping as well as an opportunity to hear local business leaders share problems they were currently facing.
“We were excited to host this unique entrepreneurial boot camp for high school students,” said Crystal Sarantoulias, Project Manager, Henry Bernick Entrepreneurship Centre.
“Events like this one gives students the opportunity to solve real business challenges presented by companies in their local community. They can apply skills they’ve learned in a meaningful way and most importantly, empowers students to feel that they too can make an impact on an organization one day by applying the entrepreneurial mindset they are learning through initiatives like ICE.”
Sarantoulia added that forty per cent of post-secondary graduates will own their own businesses at some point in the course of their working careers so it is important to begin introducing and instilling an entrepreneurial mindset at an early stage.
Innovation and entrepreneurship will be useful skills to apply in any employment opportunity and the students who attended the camps can use their newly acquired skillset on their resumé going forward.
Utilizing the skills they learned throughout the day, the students pitched youth-based solutions to companies representing four different fields.
The companies included DriveWise (transportation), Georgian’s clinics (health and wellness), Treetop Trekking (hospitality and tourism) and the Simcoe Muskoka Health Unit – Good Food Box (fundraising).
The young entrepreneurs prepared micro pitches which they presented to the businesses, organizers and their peers. They also spent some time conducting empathy and need findings to assess the root of each business problem and determine the appropriate skills and mindset to problem-solve future problems.
The students were helped through the process by 10 local community mentors from Invest Barrie, the Barrie Public library, Junior Achievers, MarS Discovery District, Georgian’s Henry Bernick Entrepreneurship Centre and Centre for Social Entrepreneurship.
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