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Entrepreneurship

2024 Coast Capital Venture Prize winner drives sustainable transportation forward

Apr 15, 2024

A micromobility hardtech startup is the top winner of SFU’s 13th annual Coast Capital Venture Prize competition. Fingerprint Technologies will use the $10,000 cash award and in-kind business development services towards bringing its novel e-bike to market in 2025. Co-founders Anthony and Hannah King launched Fingerprint Technologies in 2021, with a current product focus on the most widely-used and fastest-growing form of micromobility—the electric bicycle. Fingerprint’s reinvention of the e-bike will reduce car trips and attract new […]

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Inspiring the Transformative Synergy of Entrepreneurship: Opportunity Fest 2023

Dec 8, 2023

The entrepreneurial spirit continues to thrive at Simon Fraser University, as seen at Opportunity Fest, which brought over 250 community members together on November 23, 2023 at SFU’s Surrey campus. SFU’s largest showcase of student entrepreneurial projects is hosted annually by Beedie School of Business’ Charles Chang Institute for Entrepreneurship. This year  it was held in-person for the first time since 2019, filling the SFU-Surrey mezzanine to capacity in celebration of interdisciplinary and intergenerational innovation. […]

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Celebrating innovation: SFU Beedie’s Andrew Harries inducted into BC Tech Innovators Hall of Fame

Jul 19, 2023

SFU’s Beedie School of Business is proud to announce that faculty member Andrew Harries has been inducted into the 2023 BC Tech Innovators Hall of Fame. This honour comes as BC Tech celebrates its 30th anniversary, and the Innovators Hall of Fame is a joint initiative with the Government of British Columbia to recognize outstanding leaders in the tech industry who have left a lasting impact on the province. Andrew Harries has a remarkable track […]

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SFU’s leadership in impactful entrepreneurship recognized with international award

Jun 8, 2023

Simon Fraser University is being recognized with the 2023 Deshpande Symposium Award for The Entrepreneurial University, in recognition of its leadership in entrepreneurial programming and innovation support. The award, accepted June 6 by Director of Entrepreneurship Sarah Lubik on behalf of SFU, is given to a university that demonstrates excellence in curriculum innovation and student engagement in entrepreneurship. The award is announced annually during the Deshpande Symposium on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Higher Education, held this year […]

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SFU named Canada’s top university for innovation in global WURI rankings

May 18, 2023

Simon Fraser University is Canada’s top university for innovation and industrial application, as well as number two in the world for entrepreneurial spirit, according to the 2023 World University Rankings for Innovation (WURI). It is the third consecutive year that SFU has ranked as the top university in Canada in the overall innovation category, as well as for the entrepreneurial spirit and industrial application categories. SFU moved up globally among innovative universities to 13th in the world—up […]

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MOT MBA graduates make aerial intelligence accessible with drone software start-up

Mar 16, 2023

For Bill Lakeland and Peter Szymczak, SFU Beedie’s MOT MBA program proved to be exactly what they were looking for—a place where they could network with other business-minded individuals and gain valuable knowledge on the marketplace. They met in the program and co-founded Spexi Geospatial, a SaaS start-up that’s shaking up the geospatial data industry with an innovative software platform that uses drone technology to make aerial intelligence more accessible. The geospatial data industry has […]

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SFU Beedie represented among The Globe and Mail’s 2023 Changemakers

Mar 3, 2023

SFU Beedie congratulates two of its own, Pat Chaisang and Leejoo Hwang, for being named to The Globe and Mail’s 2023 Changemakers list. The annual list recognizes 50 emerging Canadian business leaders who are making a positive impact on their industries and communities. The list, which covers a wide range of industries and sectors from tech to healthcare to finance, showcases individuals who are innovative, socially conscious, and committed to driving positive change in their […]

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Physiotherapist and business owner takes her venture to the next level with EMBA program

Feb 27, 2023

Andrea Mendoza, a physiotherapist and business owner, knew that in order to take her business to the next level, she needed to gain a better understanding of the financial and business aspects of running and expanding her clinic. That’s when she decided to enrol in the Executive MBA program at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business. Mendoza entered the field of physiotherapy with a focus on pediatrics, working with children and teens with sports […]

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People-centred and purposeful: Joint BBA alumnus co-founded award-winning consulting firm

Nov 1, 2022

For Amarachi Nnah-Ogbonda, graduating with a joint degree in business and economics was a happy accident. Nnah-Ogbonda moved to Canada on a full scholarship offered by the state government of her home country, Nigeria, to study economics. She started out at Fraser International College (FIC), where she completed her first year, and had the opportunity to take business electives. Despite majoring in economics, she enjoyed business courses so much that she kept taking them as […]

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SFU Beedie alumnus turned cookie entrepreneur saw sweet opportunity in pandemic

Aug 9, 2022

When Jessica Nguyen graduated from SFU Beedie in 2020, she had a marketing job lined up at a tech start-up and was ready to join the workforce. But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Like many others, Nguyen lost her job offer—companies were no longer hiring. As it turns out, the pandemic may have been the best thing to happen to Nguyen and her brother, Andy. The two of them are now co-founders of a wildly […]

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