Beedie School of Business News

The IBECC team. From left to right: Winnie So, Laura Anderson, Erin Lane, Sophie Collins, and Negar Hadavi.

A team of MBA students from the Beedie School of business has dominated the field at the prestigious Intercollegiate Business Ethics Case Competition (IBECC), taking first place in the 10-minute presentation and winning silver in the 30-minute presentation.

The team, consisting of SFU MBA students Sophie Collins, Negar Hadavi, Laura Anderson and Erin Lane, and Management of Technology MBA student Winnie So, emerged victorious from a strong field of 25 competing teams from across the globe, including such distinguished institutions as the University of Oxford, INSEAD, Dartmouth and Copenhagen Business School.

The IBECC, held this year at Loyola Marymount University in San Diego, California from May 8 to 10, is the oldest and most-recognized business ethics competition of its kind. In addition to the competition, it allows students to learn about organizational ethics through conference sessions and networking with the world’s leading ethics and compliance officers. Keep reading…

Tags: Barrick Gold, business ethics, Case competition, Copenhagen Business School, Dartmouth, Erin Lane, experiential learning, IBECC, INSEAD, Intercollegiate Business Ethics Case Competition, Kathleen Burke, Laura Anderson, Management of Technology MBA, MBA, MOT MBA, Negar Hadavi, Sophie Collins, Stephanie Bertels, University of Oxford, Winnie So

The following article was published by the Globe and Mail on April 30.

Elicia Maine, Academic Director of SFU MOT MBA program

Business education has an important role to play in boosting Canada’s edge in the digital age by combining masters of business administration (MBA) programs with technology management skills, industry experts say.

Released in April, the World Economic Forum’s Networked Readiness Index ranked Canada 12th out of 144 countries, down three spots from the previous year. The point of the index is to illustrate which countries’ economies are well poised to benefit from technology-based industry. Those that ranked higher – such as Finland, the United States and Singapore – were credited with having friendly business environments and top education systems.

Canada has a skilled work force, a high-level education system and a growing economy, like the other high-ranking countries. But business specialists say the country needs to expand its reach in the global technology market, create more business leaders with specific technology management skills and strengthen the bonds between business education and industry in order to move up the ranks.

The study highlights a growing business area in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, says Elicia Maine, academic director at Simon Fraser University’s Management of Technology MBA program, though she views the rankings with some skepticism, because it compares countries with what she calls incomparable economies and education systems.

Her graduates are already tapping the ICT market, she says. “About 50 per cent of our cohort is either in software, ICT, social media or gaming sectors, all things that could broadly be in ICT. And they find great value in the customized MBA program, that can really go in-depth on the strategic issues around commercializing new technologies,” she adds.

Keep reading…

Tags: Beedie School of Business, Information and communication technology, Management Technology, Masters, MBA, MOT MBA, SFU Beedie, Simon Fraser University

Saltworks Technologies co-founders Joshua Zoshi, left, and Ben Sparrow are making waste water usable.

By Remy Scalza.

That the planet’s supply of freshwater is dwindling is little surprise.  Just where it’s going, however, is eye opening.  It takes roughly 1,500 liters of water to make a pair of jeans, as much as 5,700 liters to grow and process the ingredients needed for a fast-food combo meal and about 120,000 liters to make a car – enough water to fill half an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

“If you consider the volume of wastewater generated by industrial and agricultural activity, it’s absolutely massive,” says Joshua Zoshi, president of Vancouver-based Saltworks. “We’re trying to do something about that.” Zoshi, together with fellow Beedie School of Business alum Ben Sparrow, founded Saltworks in 2008 in hopes of harnessing next-gen desalination technologies to produce and conserve freshwater.

Just four years later, the pair find themselves working with some of North America’s largest oil and mining companies, not to mention NASA, on reducing mankind’s water footprint. “Every morning, you get out of bed and know you have the opportunity to change the world,” Zoshi says. “That passion is my business.”

For the moment, Saltworks is headquartered in a former fish-processing plant on Vancouver’s industrial port, tucked between the waterfront and a sea of shipping containers.  “We had to power-wash the walls to get rid of the smell,” Zoshi jokes, leading the way onto a busy workshop floor cluttered with prototypes, pumps, plastic tubing and pressure gauges. Keep reading…

Tags: Beedie School of Business, Ben Sparrow, desalination, entrepreneurship, Ideas@Beedie, innovaiton, Joshua Zoshi, Management of Technology MBA, MOT MBA, NASA, New Ventures BC, Research, Saltworks, Simon Fraser University, sustainability, waste water, water

MOT MBA students James Cameron (l) and Patrick Altejos pause in the midst of preparing their “pennies” exhibit for Science World’s spring break program.

The following story was published on SFU News on September 27, 2012.

A Spring Break exhibit for Science World, a fundraiser for a local food bank and a new Toastmaster’s branch for SFU are three of the projects that students in the Management of Technology MBA program are managing this semester.

They’re completing a project-management course that connects them to real-world projects on campus and in the community.

Patrick Altejos, Scott Brundrett, James Cameron and Alex Popov have spent the past two months working with Science World to develop an exhibit and activities around the penny and its demise. Keep reading…

Tags: Alex Popov, Beedie School of Business, James Cameron, Management of Technology MBA, MOT MBA, Patrick Altejos, Science World, Scott Brundrett, SFU News

The following article was published by the Globe and Mail on March 12.

Elicia Maine, Academic Director of the Management of Technology MBA program discussing bio nano research with collaborators V.J. Thomas and Armstrong Murira
Photo credit: Barry Shell

Nanotechnology (the manipulation of matter on a molecular or smaller scale) and biotechnology (the manipulation of living matter) are both hot fields of innovation. Combine the two, and you have a whole new business sector, according to a new study led by a Simon Fraser University researcher.

From stem cell medicine to biological computers, this combination is a rich breeding ground for new ventures, says lead study author, Elicia Maine, academic director of the management technology MBA program at the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University. The study, done in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of New South Wales, is called Global Bio-Nano Firms: Exploiting the Confluence of Technologies. It identified, classified and analyzed more than 500 of the world’s first companies in the emerging bio-nano sector.

The study found that, between 2005 and 2011, the number of bio-nano firms nearly doubled to 507, with more than 100 of them emerging in North America, according to Simon Fraser University. Keep reading…

Tags: AT&T, Beedie School of Business, biotechnology, Elicia Maine, Globe and Mail, innovation, Management of Technology MBA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MBA, MOT MBA, Nanosphere, nanotechnology, Simon Fraser University, stem cell, University of New South Wales

Students and alumni from the Beedie School of Business will put their business development skills to the test as they compete for $5000 of cash prizes in the annual Coast Capital Savings Venture Prize Competition.

The Beedie School of Business will once again be strongly represented in the competition, which is open to the public and will be held from 2 – 5pm on February 13 in room 4600 of the Segal Graduate School, with Beedie students and alumni comprising three of the five finalist places.

Hosted by SFU’s Venture Connection, the Coast Capital Savings Venture Prize Competition rewards excellence in business development among early-stage clients participating in the Venture Connection incubator program.

The finalists will be assessed by a guest panel of judges based on their business progress and participation within Venture Connection’s mentoring and other activities. The top three competitors will be awarded a share of the $5000 prize fund. Keep reading…

Tags: Beedie School of Business, Bella Hwang, Coast Capital Savings, Coast Capital Savings Venture Prize Competition, Executive MBA, Five Hole for Food, Howie Wu, Kody Baker, Management of Technology MBA, MBA, Michael Tran, MLT Media, MOT MBA, Perkuna Engineering, Richard Loat, Segal Graduate School, Texts 4 Health, Venture Connection

The following article was published by the Province on January 17, 2013

BY SAM COOPER, THE PROVINCE

Saltworks Technologies co-founders Ben Sparrow, left, and Joshua Zoshi are making waste water usable.

Firm’s desalination process making a splash

A unique contest for tech startups in B.C. is getting credit for fostering innovation and catalyzing some major success stories.

The BCIC New Ventures Competition runs annually from April to September, giving entrants a chance to move through stages to meet a final jury that somewhat resembles the panel of venture capitalists in CBC’s popular Dragon’s Den series.

Entrants attend a nine-week seminar series and, as they advance through a four-round contest, receive coaching and mentorship.

Since starting in 2001, the contest has helped create 3,170 jobs and about $200 million in revenue from successful entrants, according to a new report from SFU’s Beedie School of Business.

Compared to Dragon’s Den’s glammed-up version of a high-pressure pitch to powerful venture capitalists, the BCIC contest judges are far more “nice and constructive,” BCIC program manager Angie Schick said with a laugh, in an interview.

Every year about 170 hopefuls enter the contest, and finalists get chances to tap B.C.’s venture-capital community. Schick points to successful finalists like the founders of Saltworks Technologies — which won the contest in 2008 — and top-10 finisher Jason Richards of Vineyard Networks, who just inked a $28-million deal to sell his “real time” network analytics technology to Procera Networks in San Diego. Keep reading…

Tags: Alumni, BCIC, Beedie School of Business, Ben Sparrow, business innovation, business venture, desalination, Dragon's Den, entrepreneurship, Joshua Zoshi, Managemet of Technology MBA, MBA, MOT MBA, New Ventures Competition, Saltworks, sfu, Simon Fraser University, startup, The Province

Beedie School of Business MBA students braved the rain in front of the Olympic cauldron in support of the Greater Vancouver Food Bank.

MBA students from the Beedie School of Business put their studies on hold in favour of some street hockey recently, at the SFU MBA Five Hole for Food charity street hockey event.

The event was organized by SFU’s full-time and Management of Technology MBA students in partnership with Five Hole for Food, and took place at the Jack Poole Plaza (near the Olympic cauldron) in downtown Vancouver on 15 December.

Five Hole for Food is an annual coast to coast hockey tour which supports food banks across Canada. By setting up hockey rinks in the heart of each city they visit, Five Hole for Food encourages the public to play hockey and fight hunger at the same time. Keep reading…

Tags: Beedie School of Business, charity, community engagement, Downtown Vancouver, Five Hole for Food, Greater Vancouver Food Bank, hockey, Jack Poole Plaza, MBA, MBA Games, MOT MBA, street hockey

The following article was published by the Financial Post on November 27, 2012.

BY DENISE DEVEAU, FINANCIAL POST

MBA programs build entrepreneurs’ bonds

Since graduating from the Richard Ivey School of Business’s Certificate in Entrepreneurship program in 2006, Bill Hennessey has opened a number of ventures, including an online lobster company, a cleaning products packaging operation and an experiential marketing firm. In fact, he’s a true dyed-in-the-wool entrepreneur having run his first “business” at the age of seven.

The Charlottetown native believes that his Ivey contacts are what keep him on the path to success since venturing off the island. “Everything stemmed from there. In fact one of the biggest customers for my lobster company was an Ivey grad who had heard about me through the alumni program.”

For many people with entrepreneurial aspirations, building networks for success often starts with the company you keep in an MBA program. Whether entrepreneurship is in your DNA; a joint project triggers a serendipitous meeting of potential business partners; or an international junket sparks an entrepreneurial dream, MBA programs are changing their ways to offer a hotbed of networking opportunities for entrepreneurs. Keep reading…

Tags: Alumni, Alumni Association, Beedie School of Business, Ben Sparrow, business innovation, business venture, class connection, desalination, entrepreneurship, Financial Post, Joshua Zoshi, Management of Technology MBA, MBA, mechanical engineering, MOT MBA, network, Saltworks, sfu, Simon Fraser University, software consulting, startup

Opinion: As host to top-ranked research universities, British Columbia stands much to gain from fostering talented young people

By Ian McCarthy, Vancouver Sun

Tags: Aalborg University, Andre Wirthmann, Beedie School of Business, Brian Gordon, British Columbia, business ventures, Canada Research Chair, economic growth, Education + Training, Elicia Maine, entrepreneurship, Ian McCarthy, innovation, iowa Writers' Workshop, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Leeds Business School, Management of Technology MBA, Management Science, MOT MBA, nature vs nurture, sfu, Startup Canada, Teaching, University of Hamburg, Yale School of Management