However, it is not that easy for startups to stand out and be found by students — there is a lot of competition and with companies like Yahoo!, RIM, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and more posting jobs startups need to market themselves. On top of that, it is really hard to startups to get the timing right and navigate the co-op hiring process at the University. It’s not the fault of the process but more the nature of a fledgling business balancing a lot of demands meeting the deadlines that are at the start of each term.

Through VeloCity I want to help startups find good students to work with and I want the students to have the opportunity to gain some great experience working with a startup in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Boston, San Francisco, etc. What I ask is that startups take a moment and fill out some basic information first (at the end of the post or use this link). From there go over to the Employer Manual on the CECS site and read up on hiring a student. You will need to follow their process to get a job posted.

Next VeloCity will follow-up with you. Once you have a job posted with CECS we will need to share that job posting number with students so they can find it faster.

What we plan to do is create a list for students at VeloCity to see right at the start of each term so that the company names are front and center. We will also send out the list of students (and some recent grads) that have been in VeloCity. We will share the details as we get them and keep them informed. The last thing is that we will develop a poster for campus that can feature startups and working for them.

What is asked in return…

We have the following topics that need speakers on the specific dates at 4pm:

As well as networking lunches at the Bomber every other Wednesday starting on September 22nd that it would good if you (by you I mean the founder(s), CEO, etc) could try and attend at least one. There is also are start of term BBQ on September 20th and would encourage you to come out that night.

Canada has a lot of naturally talented young entrepreneurs but…

…we don’t have a big enough community to support them naturally. We have a lot of young people that need to be given the opportunity to try something. In order to try something the support needs to be there to help them accelerate quickly to either failure or success. We have a government sponsored system in Canada that can offer life support to enable a long process of building a company around a product (with tax credits, etc), what I don’t think we have is a system (or community) that can help people with the development of ideas into product. Some localities have communities that are decently strong but they aren’t big enough to meet the need that I believe is there.

Canada has lots of great young entrepreneurs that figure it out regardless but I see way too many talented U of Waterloo students that could be incredible entrepreneurs given the right community support that would encourage them away from the incredible job opportunities they have right in front of them. They don’t need money, they need a realistic chance of getting a product to a customer, receiving feedback, and trying again. They need the support of their peers and a place to meet new people with new ideas.

What is needed the most are really good mentors

My focus at VeloCity for the next year will be cultivating the mentor/student relationship. We need mentors that connect with what a particular group is doing, help them with their product, and get them to their first sale. That isn’t an easy task but if the right connection between an eager student team and a mentor happens, I am certain both the mentor and the students will learn a lot from each other.

What I want to see from a mentor/student relationship is a team given the opportunity to test their product on people that they think would pay for what they are building or service they are providing, along with help identifying when to pivot or when to walk away. As a mentor, you provide a sense of hindsight which is invaluable to any young entrepreneur. VeloCity is working towards building this student/mentor relationship through democamp style events where the teams pitch or demo their ideas, receive feedback and the mentors can get an idea of who they are and if they can help.

VeloCity will help a little to formalize the relationship but I would hope the connections happen naturally at these events. If you are interested in being a mentor please get in contact with me (jrodgers at uwaterloo.ca).

– posted on the VeloCity blog as well.

From my perspective I think it inspiring that a person that grew up in Sault Ste. Marie and worked the steel plant in his youth (only first heard him tell that story a few months ago) has taken a long path through academia, family life (he has a lot of daughters), and still works his farm just outside of Waterloo is now the next Governor General of Canada.  The University of Waterloo will certainly miss him and the person who thinks they can try and fill his shoes on campus just had the bar raised pretty darn high.

An email went out to all the folks on campus today and I haven’t seen it online yet so I thought, since it is so well written, I would share it here and link to it whenever it ends up online (Friday July 9th’s Daily Bulletin has extensive coverage and links to other articles). Should add, I am a bit happy to see VeloCity listed as one of the things he is proud of around here

Earlier today, President Johnston informed the university leadership about his appointment as Governor General effective October 1, 2010. He noted that he will continue as uWaterloo president until September 30.

“My wife Sharon and I are honoured to be asked to serve Canada in this way and will miss the Waterloo family enormously, but we will not be far away,” he said.

“ I am a teacher as are my only brother and my sister. All five of our daughters are public servants. All the important things in life I’ve learned from my children. This is just one more lesson.”

While he is excited about the new opportunity in his life, he says there is still “much to do at uWaterloo between now and Oct 1. I want to devote an enormous effort to bring Campaign Waterloo home in splendid fashion and will count on all of you to ensure a smooth and vigorous transition to my successor.”

During his 11-year tenure at the University of Waterloo, David Johnston oversaw unprecedented growth in the university’s reputation, research capacity, and leadership capabilities.

Of his many accomplishments, he will be especially remembered for:

• Putting the University of Waterloo, and the surrounding region, on the national map as a centre for talent, ideas, and innovation.
• He led Campaign Waterloo, which raised in excess of $500 million to support the university’s scholarship, students, and key building projects.
• The Institute for Quantum Computing, founded in 2002, has become a leading centre for development of ideas that may lead to a revolution in how we store and transmit information, among many other things. The institute moves into the $160-million Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum Nano Centre in 2011, one of five current major building projects underway on the uWaterloo campus.
• Leading research groups have formed and grown under President Johnston’s tenure, including the Water Institute, The Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy, the Propel Centre for Population Health Impact, the Waterloo Centre for Automotive Research (WATCar), and the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change. Research funding for the university has nearly tripled in this decade from $61 million in 1999 to $170 million in 2009.
• He has encouraged talent and ideas through VeloCity, the university’s unique “dormcubator” residence for student entrepreneurs, and the Accelerator Centre, which provides a fertile environment for start-up high-tech firms developing new products and services.

Demonstrating the value and impact of collaboration among academics, government, philanthropists and business to boost community building and economic development.

• 2001 saw the launch of Waterloo’s Research and Technology Park, a 100-acre development on the university’s north campus supported by the City of Waterloo, the Region of Waterloo, and the provincial and federal governments.
• The university’s School of Architecture opened in a renovated silk mill in downtown Cambridge in 2004, a partnership of the university, local business leaders, the City of Cambridge, the Region of Waterloo, philanthropists, and the provincial government.
• Waterloo’s health sciences campus, anchored by Canada’s only co-op School of Pharmacy that opened in 2009, was made possible through the investment and vision of the City of Kitchener, the Region of Waterloo, the provincial and federal governments, and the university.
• Ground will break this fall for a new Stratford Campus focused on digital media, a joint project of the City of Stratford, corporate partners including Open Text, the university and the provincial and federal governments.

Inspiring the community through his vision of a “Knowledge Capital” that has raised the sights of Waterloo to aspire to world leadership.

• In 2007, the City of Waterloo was recognized as the world’s Top Intelligent Community by the Intelligent Communities Forum.
• President Johnston’s vision includes a community where universities are innovative leaders, healthy living standards raise, investments in research and development transform, smart infrastructure is developed, and social innovation is championed.

Championing experiential education and the university’s co-operative education program, the largest of its kind in the world, which nurtures Waterloo’s students’ ideas and teaches them how their ideas are their most valuable offering in Canada’s knowledge economy.

• The William M. Tatham Centre for co-operative education and career services opened on the Waterloo campus in 2002, a building dedicated solely to supporting and growing the university’s co-op program.
• Half of Waterloo’s undergraduate students are part of the co-op program, with 13,000 students matched with 3,000 employers world wide.

A presidential search was launched earlier this year to replace President Johnston, who had been scheduled to retire from Waterloo in June 2011.

In the interim, before his successor is chosen, the university’s Policy 50 will be applied, which gives responsibility to the Board of Governors, in consultation with the Vice-President, Academic & Provost and other senior university officers, to appoint an interim President to serve until the nominating committee has finished its work.

Meg Beckel
Vice-President, External Relations

The key belief underlying this summit is that entrepreneurship is the fundamental economic driver that makes recessions less painful and it is entrepreneurs that will lead economic growth. There is a shift in thinking in G20 governments from prioritizing the large employeer creating jobs and ignoring the small business entrepreneur that would create only a few jobs. The shift in thinking from the government perspective was emphasized when John Manley (former Industry Minister) took the stage and raised the point that he has seen Canada go from a nation that wants to be employees to that which what to be employers. Tony Clement‘s (current Industry Minister) statements made just before John Manley took the stage were more impressive considering where Canada was just 20 years ago.

Canada still can do a lot more, entrepreneurs (especially in the tech world) don’t feel it is all that easy to start a business and legislation is stacked against them in favour of the large companies. However, it is through more official channels like the G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit where I think all entrepreneurs can be more effective influencing government.

The end result of the summit is that the B20 summit will have youth entrepreneurship on their agenda along with the recommendations to discuss from the delegations that attended this summit. A secondary result is an agreement to pursue this movement into the next year with a meeting in South Korea in November followed by a summit at the G20 in France next year.

Along with the delegate discussions there were a number of panels and presentations which just flooded twitter with some great tidbits of information. Here are some tweets from me and others that I really like that are quoting tidbits of the wisdom shared:

You have to be born an entrepreneur – it’s a character trait. I can’t paint, but I am an entrepreneur. – Eric Boyko

Partnership with spouse is key. Need to share responsibilities on a domestic level to avoid burnout. – Tara (mother of 7)

“They tend to work less and they tend to talk more” Speaking of the younger people in the work place – Rahul Chawla

the more people i meet the more i learn – Rahul Chawla

Ur sitting on an ice cream cone in the middle of July. You must be making decisions quickly. But have humility to reverse decisions.

No pure failure in entrepreneurship; Entrepreneurs are optimists that fail. You pick yourself up and try again – Tom Jenkins

#g20yes Minister Peter Van Loan Canada features strongest workforce, knowledgeable&skilled workers http://twitpic.com/1z3yyf

Prosperity is created by successful businesses, big and small. And it’s people like you that help build this success- Peter Van Loan #g20yes

Have a look at the #g20yes hashtag on twitter, there is a lot of info there but certainly worth digging through. Also Tom Jenkins Fireside Chat was posted on the National Post.

On the last evening event one of the VeloCity teams that are part of the Entrepreneur Bootcamp had an opportunity to show off their work and meet delegates from all over the G20. I didn’t get a picture (there are official ones somewhere) of when Minister Peter Van Loan (Industry Minister for Canada) dropped by but I grabbed one of when they had folks from Russia, Canada, and the EU at the table.

Overall I am really impressed with what CYBF put together and the delegates that have attended. Really looking forward to what an effort like can do to help influence government policy, open up different markets to Canadian entrepreneurs, and help build a more extensive mentorship and support network.

The first Canadian Post-Secondary Education Web Conference (or just PSEWEB) has come and gone . Wow what a fun conference! For a conference that started as an idea at HighEdWeb 2009 it became a great little conference with 140 in attendance, some amazing speakers, and a unique focus on not just web technology or content but how to use the web with marketing, communications, and student/staff/faculty engagement.

With other conferences like CANHEIT and OUCC being technology driven, it is refreshing to see a scrappy little upstart focus not only on all of post-secondary education web pros but also on the utilization of the technology and the people consuming content. The other two are very technology driven and focused on different things. There is the CCAE conference as well but quite honestly it is a very high priced conference that doesn’t get into the more leading edge stuff people are trying and a bit too advancement focused.

What I really enjoyed about the conference is meeting some great professionals from across the country and sharing war stories from the years of working on the web in higher ed. Sure I can do that at HighEdWeb in the US but they are well ahead of Canadian schools in many things and have a different type of student market. It’s not that a ton can be learned by going to HighEdWeb 2010 (I highly recommend it) but there is something really good about having a bit of a sanity check measured against peers in your own country.

The other really surprising and pleasant thing… Brock University has a really nice campus and community surrounding it — I never really had a chance to appreciate that before.

Big thanks to Melissa for bringing this all together and anyone else who helped her Have a look on twitter (pseweb) for some great insights and I will be posting a bit more about my presentations later this week. For an American’s perspective (and a great overview) have a look at canada’s 1st highered web conference a success: a foreigner’s perspective.