Entrepreneur students gain wisdom from Windsor business leaders
The Downtown Windsor Business Accelerator hosted its 10th annual Entrepreneurs’ Summit on Wednesday, marking the first in-person return of the event since the COVID-19 pandemic began over three years ago.
Nearly five dozen high school student entrepreneurs from Assumption Collegiate Catholic High School mingled with half a dozen local business leaders to gain entrepreneurial wisdom.
“This is the first time where we can actually get the kids back on site face-to-face interacting with local business owners,” said business teacher Jeremy Bracken, who also serves as a board member at the accelerator.
Bracken said it’s refreshing to be back in person, hoping the summit can inspire resiliency in students while helping them identify successful business opportunities.
“Not every kid in their family necessarily has an entrepreneur that they can lean on and if we can open those doors and get kids forming genuine connections and you know, ‘add me on LinkedIn’ and ‘come to me for questions,’ because as a business teacher and business owner, I can only give them my own personal experiences and that's only a few industries,” he said.
“On a day like this, they’re exposed to six additional industries that I’m not even part of and we're hoping that those genuine relationships formed can last a lifetime.”
“If you want to live in Windsor and this is your home, entrepreneurship should be an option because you can have a great lifestyle,” said Downtown Windsor Business Accelerator CEO Arthur Barbut. “It's a beautiful place to be, it's an amazing location, it's still much more affordable than moving to Toronto or KW (Kitchener-Waterloo), so why not?”
Barbut said given the recent events surrounding the battery plant in Windsor, this summit highlights why there should be enhanced focus on supporting and growing local companies.
“I think for us if you want to change our and take more control of our economic future, we really have to invest in Windsor, in people, in companies that want to stay here want to build our region up,” he said.
According to Barbut, about 20 per cent of high school students surveyed after the inaugural summit in 2013 expressed interest in joining or starting a start-up business of their own.
“In 2019, when we hosted the last live one before today, it was 87 per cent,” he said. “So we're seeing a massive shift in that mindset in embracing that culture of like, ‘hey, you know, entrepreneurship is a valid career for me, or at least working for a start-up is not something that's as scary as it used to be in the past.’ So that's very, very positive.”
“Seeing what they've been during COVID is really uplifting and just it's such a good experience and such a good opportunity for us to learn from people already in the sector and implement in our own daily lives,” said grade 12 student Maya Mikhael.
“And just understanding all the different aspects that go into a business,” added classmate Shahnda Shaker. “Because obviously we have some understanding of it but we don't know everything that goes on behind the scenes. So I thought it was really interesting.”
Some students have already launched their own small business, like Reni Babs-Olorunfemi. “So my business is Virtual Tours 3D. So basically what I do is I go to real estate agents and offer my services which is creating 3D models of homes for them to sell.”
Babs-Olorunfemi told CTV News the main goal is to gain as much experience and knowledge as possible, while admitting post-secondary education will lead away from Windsor-Essex.
“For me, the city has done a lot. I immigrated to Canada with my family in 2015 and being here for like eight years now, it made the transition easier from Nigeria to Canada so I'm really grateful for the city. And being here gave me perspective on meeting so many different types of people because we are such a diverse city.”
Summit keynote speaker and Tepperman’s president, Andrew Tepperman, said there’s hope in the future, suggesting students would be wise to consider a return to the region should their education take them elsewhere.
“A lot of them are going to go to other universities,” Tepperman said. “The teacher was saying one of his students got into Stanford. That's excellent. You know, you have to be happy for that person. And I went away to New York. My brothers went away in the US for school too, but two of the three of us came back and that's where our home is, our roots, our families. So even if they're going to better themselves, there's a good chance they could come back too.”
He added, “It's not all rosy and fun. There's a lot of challenges and there's a lot of risks, but at the same time there can be a lot of rewards too.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Cargo ship had engine maintenance in port before Baltimore bridge collapse, officials say
The cargo ship that lost power and crashed into a bridge in Baltimore underwent 'routine engine maintenance' in port beforehand, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday.
A Nigerian woman reviewed some tomato puree online. Now she faces jail
A Nigerian woman who wrote an online review of a can of tomato puree is facing imprisonment after its manufacturer accused her of making a “malicious allegation” that damaged its business.
Far North police 'dispatch' polar bear stalking schoolyard
Police and local hunters in an Ontario Far North First Nation community have “dispatched” a polar that was showing abnormal behaviour and treating the area as a hunting ground.
Donald Trump assails judge and his daughter after gag order in N.Y. hush-money criminal case
Donald Trump lashed out Wednesday at the New York judge who put him under a gag order that bars him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.
Families shocked after Niagara Falls hotel cancels bookings made year in advance of solar eclipse
After having the foresight to book their Niagara Falls hotel rooms more than a year in advance, several families planning to take in the solar eclipse next month were shocked to find out their reservations had been cancelled.
B.C. rescuers face 'high likelihood' of failure to reunite orphaned orca with pod
The race to reunite an orphaned orca calf that’s stuck in a shallow lagoon with a neighbouring pod has entered its fifth day, and a marine scientist says the clock is ticking.
Video shows police interrupting auto theft in progress outside Toronto home
New video footage obtained by CP24 shows the attempted theft of a vehicle in a North York driveway earlier this month that was ultimately interrupted by police.
Majority of Canadians believe in life after death: Angus Reid survey
A new survey from the Angus Reid Institute has found that a majority of Canadians believe in some form of life after death, a proportion that has held steady for decades.
MyPillow, owned by U.S. election denier Mike Lindell, formally evicted from Minnesota warehouse
A court ordered the eviction Wednesday of MyPillow from a suburban Minneapolis warehouse that it formerly used.