Smart Education in Canada : College Entrepreneurship Centre Will Help Students Start Own Business

Windsor, ON - Got an idea for a business? Looking to turn it into a reality?

Well why not develop your business goal at St. Clair College's Genesis Entrepreneurship Centre?

he 2,000 square-foot space will open in September and will be located at Windsor's Main Campus. Chris Ryan, the Centre's Director, said it will be a place where you can get mentoring and advice from business professionals in the community and a resource centre where you can learn about the many facets of starting your own business, like drafting a business plan, creating a business model, networking or even pitching business ideas to discuss and develop.

"It's for anybody who has an ambition, a thought, a goal of being in business for themselves, or just wants to learn the business philosophy," explained Ryan. "It'll also be open for students who will be going to work for corporations and who just want to learn more about business and how they can bring a different perspective to the corporations they may eventually work for."

Ryan points out that there are many students who are going into family businesses that the Genesis Entrepreneurship Centre will benefit.

"There are students who will be taking over as a second or third generation family member within a business and this will teach them how to look at things differently and perhaps how to understand the family business a little better and bring a new perspective to the family business," said Ryan.

In Canada, the entrepreneurial drive is continuing to rise. In recent years, more and more Canadians are considering self-employment as a viable career option.

According to Statistics Canada, self-employment has risen more than 60 per cent since 1986. It's a trend that's expected to continue in the future, and something St. Clair cares to help foster in the community with the Genesis Entrepreneurship Centre.

"The reason many come to St. Clair College is to be trained in a specific field and then to start their own business, in which case we'll have the entrepreneurship centre that'll support those students," said Ryan. "This is part of St. Clair College's overall strategy of connecting students to jobs."

It will be open to prospective and current St. Clair students, as well as St. Clair Alumni.

The Centre is also open to prospective students or other people of the community that may want to come to St. Clair College although it's will be on college students.

Ryan said the Genesis Entrepreneurship Centre is also a way to keep engaged with St. Clair Alumni. As St. Clair grads continue their professional careers, they can utilize the services provided at the Centre to improve and enhance their business skillsets, he said.

And Ryan points out that the Centre is for those in all fields and industries, not just business students.

"I think every one of the programs we have here at St. Clair College, one way or another, will tie into this," said Ryan. "Even if you look at your emergency response services, you may have someone that wants to go off on their own once they have a high level of, say, CPR training. They can go off and do their own CPR training business on the side."

He noted that for students in any discipline interested in starting their own business, the Genesis Entrepreneurship Centre can help teach them the financial aspect of owning a business and things such as cash flow, balance sheets, how to get properly licensed, how to brand your business, how to conduct your business with consistency in hours of operations and competitive analysis.

"So we can take them through that whole process," said Ryan. "We're not doing it for them, but we're going to give them the tools to think it through."

St. Clair's motto, "Start here, go anywhere," will take on a new meaning with the opening of the Genesis Entrepreneurship Centre.

"So right from students who think to themselves, 'I have no actual business idea, but I know I want to work for myself,'" said Ryan. "We'll put these people in a group with some common-minded people to see where it can go. We're going to open up with some setup programs, one of which involves just sitting around and kind of networking ideas and have these group sessions to discuss making ideas into workable businesses."

The Genesis Entrepreneurship Centre is an additional experiential learning experience people to prepare themselves for a life in the world of business, said Ryan

In the next few weeks, Ryan hopes to start Entrepreneurship Club

"What we're trying to get is as many people who have business interests from all the different schools at the college to get together and ideate and hash out some ideas and see where we take it," said Ryan about the Entrepreneurship Club. "It's to get like-minded individuals who have an interest in one day either working within the business world or working for themselves within the business world

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