Student entrepreneurship program “Summer Company” is back
Posted Mar 19, 2015 01:33:54 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The program gives students in the region a chance to live out their dream, starting their own company.
You have to be a student between the ages of 15 and 29 to apply; the program usually gets about 80-100 applications.
Rob Clement, the small business advisor and Summer Company Lead at the Waterloo Small Business Centre, says the provincial initiative has given out almost one million dollars total to almost 6-thousand students over the past 14-years.
“[The province] provides the funding,” says Clement. “We provide the training, mentoring, guidance and coaching for students to take a shot at running their own business full-time over the summer.”
Clement says this kind of program is extremely important for a student of any age.
“It gives them not only experience in entrepreneurship but a great deal of life experience and even if you decide entrepreneurship is not for you, the critical thinking and creative skills that can be transferred into the workplace are huge,” says Clement.
If you get accepted, you get $1,500 at the start and finish of the summer. You can keep the profits the business makes and continue operation of the business after the program, but you do have to go back to school after the program is finished.
