VENTUre For Canada Launches In NB
April 24th, 2017
Venture for Canada, the program that matches leading Canadian graduates to jobs in the country’s startups, will announce its launch in New Brunswick on Tuesday.
The organization will hold a launch event, open to the public, at Planet Hatch in Fredericton at noon tomorrow. Tech evangelist David Alston and Chinova Bioworks CEO Natasha Dhayagude (a former Venture for Canada fellow) will be the special guests at the event.
Venture for Canada, or VFC, each year selects fellows from among the leading graduates at Canadian universities and matches them with startups that need talent. The application process for VFC is rigorous, consisting of essays, transcripts, resumes and interviews. The VFC website cites intelligence, character, founder potential, ability to contribute and grit as the characteristics required of VFC fellows.
Fellows attend a four-week training camp at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., where they become versed in subjects such as management practices, social entrepreneurship, family business, communications, sales strategies and conflict resolution. In the 2016-2017 Fellowship cohort, just over 60 fellows were chosen from among nearly 2,200 applicants. More than one-third of the successful candidates will be placed at Atlantic Canadian start-ups.
Sabrina Poirier, the Program Director for Atlantic Canada, posted on Facebook last week that this will be the first year that the program will be in New Brunswick, “so we want to celebrate with the many wonderful people, organizations and startups who’ve supported us along the way.”
The event will offer a chance to meet Founder and Executive Director Scott Stirrett, Program Coordinator in New Brunswick Kassi Clifford, and the 2017 fellows who have just been chosen for New Brunswick.
The New Brunswick event comes as VFC learned last week that it would receive $202,959 in funding from the federal government. It provided the funding through the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency’s Business Development Program (BDP).
“As a proud Nova Scotian, it has been wonderful to see the Venture for Canada program expand in Atlantic Canada,” said Stirrett in a statement. “It is fantastic to see the tremendous growth of entrepreneurship in the region and we are honored to work with amazing community partners and high growth start-ups.”