Startup Canada visits York Region

Startup Canada visits York Region

The Regional Municipality of York to welcome Startup Canada National Tour

 

Newmarket, ON (May 24, 2012) – As one of Canada’s current hotbeds for startup ICT firms, The Regional Municipality of York has been eagerly anticipating Startup Canada’s National Tour visit this week. The Startup Canada Tour, which launched in March, is travelling across the country to celebrate entrepreneurship, identifying key challenges facing Canadian entrepreneurs and startups, and igniting new community-led solutions to those challenges. Input gathered through 30 Town Halls and more than 100 Fringe Events will inform an action plan, which Startup Canada will present to Prime Minister Stephen Harper this fall.

 

“We are very pleased to be hosting three StartUp Canada events in York Region, engaging hundreds of new and established entrepreneurs in an exciting discussion of how we can become more innovative and competitive as a nation,” said York Region Chairman and CEO Bill Fisch. “The Startup Canada movement is an exciting way to identify opportunities to make our region even better for entrepreneurs, and we look forward to contributing to this most important national dialogue.”

 

The Tour’s first stop in York Region is a Town Hall in Markham, co-hosted by ventureLAB and facilitated by business journalist and Startup Canada Advisor Rick Spence. The event will brainstorm community-driven ideas for supporting local entrepreneurship. ventureLAB President & CEO Jeremy Laurin, who coordinates programs for entrepreneur development, is looking forward to that discussion.

 

“This past year ventureLAB has met with literally hundreds of technology-based entrepreneurs throughout York Region and the GTA – inspired, hardworking folks all trying to change the world,” Laurin said. “It’s challenging, exciting and a pleasure to work with technology entrepreneurs. We know there are many more in York Region and we want to meet them.”

 

After the Markham stop, Startup Canada joins the York Technology Alliance for its Leadership Awards Luncheon, and then wraps up the day with a York Region Town Hall in King City, following a small business conference on innovation. Among the local participants will be Julie King, Co-Founder and Managing Editor of York Region-based CanadaOne.com, who says the time is right for an initiative like Startup Canada.

“This is an exciting time for start-ups in Canada and it is critical that we foster a high level of innovation at all levels of business to remain competitive,” said King. “We welcome the Startup Canada initiative as an important component of fostering a growing climate of innovation.”


 
Throughout the tour, provincial steering committees are helping put the spotlight on local startups and build connections across Canada’s entrepreneur communities through live webcasts of the Town Halls and active social media networks.

 

“To see a movement bring us together and empower us is more than exciting, it’s downright marvelous,” said Sean Stephens, CEO, Treefrog Interactive Inc./LassoSoft Inc. “Being a serial entrepreneur is often a painful, thankless job. Every day, sitting on your island, you grit your teeth and struggle through barrier after barrier while the world feeds you pessimism. The Startup Canada movement has a glorious vision that I think has the potential to make a real difference.”

 

In addition to being championed by patrons such as Brett Wilson (Host of RiskyBusinessTV, former Dragon & serial entrepreneur), Heather Reisman (Founder, Indigo Books & Music), and Dani Reiss (Founder, Canada Goose), Startup Canada has also received support nationally from a number of ambassadors and industry sponsors Microsoft, Gowlings and Ernst & Young.

 

Local partners include The Regional Municipality of York, ventureLAB, BKI, Small Business Enterprise Centres, Chambers of Commerce and the Northern Six (N6) municipalities of King, Aurora, East Gwillimbury, Georgina, Newmarket and Whitchurch Stouffville.

 

Other sponsors include Microsoft, Gowlings, Ernst & Young, Best Western, Artik, Kick Ass Media, PubliAir, VideoBooth the Association of University Research Parks Canada, the Canadian Association of Business Incubation, the Evidence Network, Francis Moran & Associates, FreshBooks, MSBi Valorisation, NextMTL, the Ottawa Technology Transfer Network, Podio, Backbone Magazine, HootSuite, ITWorld Canada, Paper.li, Sprouter, and Techvibes.

 

York Region is Startup Canada’s last stop in Ontario this May and moves on to New Brunswick tomorrow before heading west to the prairies. A full schedule of York Region’s events and the complete National Tour is posted on the Startup Canada website – www.startupcan.ca/tour