Helping students build better businesses

“They’re blazing their own trail,” says Ed Leach, an assistant professor in Dal’s Rowe School of Business.

Helping students blaze those trails is Canada’s Business Model Competition, the inaugural edition of which was hosted this past March by the Norman Newman Centre for Entrepreneurship, part of the Rowe School of Business. (Dr. Leach is the centre’s director.) The competition is the Canadian qualifier for the International Business Model Competition, hosted in May of this year at Harvard.

Now, thanks to support from Canadian professional services firm Deloitte, the competition is moving past the pilot stage to become an ongoing fixture nationally. Earlier this summer, Deloitte announced that it is donating $250,000 over the next five years to support the competition. The gift was celebrated with a community event in the Rowe Building.

“The competition supports different disciplines, and the donation to Dalhousie will help support students of different fields,” explained Shannon MacDonald, Deloitte Atlantic managing partner and also a former board member for the company. “I hope it helps create a supportive environment for students... we are confident the competition will draw a national audience next year.”

Shannon MacDonald of Deloitte Atlantic.

“A transformative experience”

Attending the reception were members of the Spring Loaded Technology team, winner of this year’s competition. The team, which landed a $100,000 investment from prominent Halifax tech entrepreneur John Hamblin of Clarke IT Solutions back in March, devised a spring-loaded knee brace to help support joints and to improve and prolong performance and quality of life not just for athletes, but also people who have difficulty moving due to age, disability or obesity.

“After winning [the Canadian Business Model Competition], we were fortunate enough to be awarded a slot in the International Competition, being hosted at Harvard and presented to a panel of judges at the Harvard I-Lab,” explained Shea Kewin, a varsity athlete with the Dal Tigers men’s hockey team. “It has truly been a transformative experience to see our vision come to life.”

The idea for the device came from Kewin’s own experience as an athlete. “I had an idea, and I just needed to talk to the right people and find the right team.” The team, consisting of translational neuroscience doctoral candidate Cris Cowper-Smith, Kewin and mechanical engineering candidate Bob Garrish, jokingly referred to themselves as “The Geek, the Goon and the Gadgeteer.” All three students met each other for the first time in Dal's  “Starting Lean” course, led by faculty member Mary Kilfoil.

Also on hand at the announcement was one of this year’s judges, Daniel Boyd from Dal’s Faculty of Dentistry (cross-appointed with the School of Biomedical Engineering) who spoke to the role that an investment such as this can have for students looking to get business ideas off the ground.

“Abraham Lincoln said that the best way to predict your future is to create it, and that’s what this does,” said Dr. Boyd. “The Canadian Business Model Competition will encourage students to get in front of people and talk. That’s what it takes.”

Learn more about the competition at its website.