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Photo: The 2025 Doing Business in Emerging Markets class in Ottawa with Dr. Sundararajan and Ed Steeves.

Every year with the help of Export Development Canada (EDC), a small group of students travels overseas for some real-world experience with exporting Canadian products and services. This spring fourteen Bachelor of Commerce Co-op (BComm Co-op) and Bachelor of Management (BMgmt) students visited Indonesia and Vietnam where they were doing research for two seafood companies and a tech firm. Once they returned, the research was presented to businesses exploring outside markets. 

Student advice to businesses was “spot on” 

One of the students in the Doing Business in Emerging Markets course, Sage Fry (BComm’25), says “it’s huge to be able to go over there and actually see the market.” Fry says the course showed him that “a lot of business is still done face-to-face and there's still a lot of things you can't find online.”   

Ed Steeves (MBA ’97), EDC’s Regional Vice President – Atlantic, says the course is about "educating the students and giving them world-class experience that you can’t get by reading a textbook. It's also about helping Canadian exporters with their ongoing diversification journey and giving them some advice along the way.” 

The market intelligence they gathered this year—through formal and informal meetings, as well as at a trade show—was “spot on” according to Dr. Binod Sundararajan, who teaches the course. 

Course aligns clearly with EDC’s mission 

Fry says before travelling overseas “I had the mindset that Indonesia is a huge untapped market for the fish company I was representing.” But after meeting Trade Commissioners and local representatives from the EDC on the ground in Indonesia, he says he changed his mind.

“There are so many barriers to entry in that market, I wouldn’t do business there. There’s way less opportunity in Indonesia than I had imagined.”  Fry explains that this isn’t a ‘never’ do business decision, but he doesn’t think this is a good time to be exporting there. Vietnam, he adds, is the place his company should be. 

In previous years, cohorts have travelled to India, Chile, Mexico, and Brazil—and thanks to the EDC’s generous funding, students pay only a fraction of the travel costs. 

Steeves, a passionate sailor who describes himself as a ‘recovering banker’, has been an enthusiastic champion of the Emerging Markets course since he started at EDC seven years ago.  

He says his support is motivated in part by wanting to give back to Dal, as “a proud alumnus,” and because the course aligns so clearly with the EDC’s mission. “Our mandate is to support and help Canadian companies go, grow, and succeed internationally. What the program is doing encompasses everything the EDC supports and wants to see more of.”  

“A truly unique and exceptional opportunity” 

Before they go overseas, Steeves arranges for the students to visit the EDC head office in Ottawa. They meet key figures, like trade commissioners and ambassadors, from the countries they will be visiting. Dr. Sundararajan says the EDC visit sets the tone and is a key part of the experience.  

“When we go to the EDC offices, they take us to this massive room that looks like the United Nations, and it is quite awe-inspiring. Ed ensures EDC folks are there, either in person, or through the internet from whichever part of the world they're in,” he says. He believes the experience shows students that exporting to other countries is a viable career option and that the EDC and Ed Steeves are there to support Canadian companies. 

Steeves says that in addition to “bringing practical relationships back to Canada and opening up doors for further dialogue,” participating students also get valuable lessons in cultural differences, and the importance of respecting them. The course, he says, “is a truly unique and exceptional opportunity.”