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Social Innovation

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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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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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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Industrial waste solutions company founded by SFU Beedie alumni named 2022 Canada’s Sustainability Changemaker

Jul 28, 2022

The planet’s dwindling freshwater supply is a major global 21st century problem—and it’s little surprise, considering it takes 2,700 litres of water just to make one T-shirt. That’s enough water for one person to drink for almost three years. And that’s not considering the environmental impact of processing the wastewater resulting from these industrial productions. In 2015, $9 billion dollars were spent trucking polluted water to holes and pumping it down, a process both costly […]

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SFU Beedie alumnus empowers high-school students through educational non-profit

Jul 13, 2022

Growing up, Claire Connop recognized that society places a taboo on many topics around female physical and mental health. We typically don’t talk openly about these topics and our school systems tend to provide little education for girls and young women going through pivotal life changes. She decided to do something about it. Together with co-founders she met in her BUS 477 course at SFU Beedie, Connop co-founded the Glow Within Foundation, a Vancouver-based non-profit […]

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From spinal cord research to circular plastics: Mitacs i2I Skills Training finale celebrates scientist innovators

May 27, 2022

Janis Kan, neuroscience PhD candidate at Queen’s University, has taken home top honours at the 2022 Mitacs Invention to Innovation (i2I) Skills Training Final Pitch Competition. Kan, co-founder of Dynamiris, which aims to aid clinicians in the early identification of neurological issues, was named the winner and received a $5,000 prize from SFU Innovates and customized mentoring in her regional ecosystem. Dr. Christopher Mueller, professor and founding member of the Queen’s Cancer Research Institute in […]

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SFU entrepreneurs named Changemakers by The Globe and Mail for innovative startups in tech and sustainability

Feb 25, 2022

Two SFU alumni have been named in The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Magazine‘s 2022 Changemakers, an annual list of emerging leaders transforming business today. Rene Blanco and Sumreen Rattan, entrepreneurs from The Charles Chang Institute for Entrepreneurship, are two of 50 Canada-wide award recipients comprised of entrepreneurs, academics and executives who are striving to find innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing issues. Both Blanco and Rattan developed their startups through SFU’s Coast […]

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Tech e@SFU start-up wins third place in global sustainability competition

Jun 18, 2019

The SFU student founders of technology start-up Novion have won third place in the global Enzen Hackathon after competing against more than 650 companies. The three-phase hackathon sought solutions for tackling worldwide energy, water and environmental challenges. Novion grew out of the Technology Entrepreneurship@SFU program (Tech e@SFU), where John Nguyen, who is graduating from SFU’s Beedie School of Busines, Devpreet Bhullar, who graduates this month from mechatronic systems engineering, and mechatronic alumnus Refayet Siam teamed […]

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SFU Beedie students victorious at Oxford competition

Jun 12, 2019

A multidisciplinary team of SFU business and environment undergrads extinguished their global competition to take first place in the finals of the global Map the System competition held at Oxford University on June 9. This is the third consecutive year that an SFU team has made it to the top three in the final round in the U.K. The competition challenges students to explore societal and environmental change through a research lens. Team Inferno comprises […]

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SFU Beedie hosts Nobel Peace Prize winner

Feb 7, 2018

Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus addressed an audience of more than 300 people at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business at a special event on February 5, 2018. Professor Yunus, who founded microfinance organization Grameen Bank, is the winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, among many other international honours and awards, for his pioneering work in developing microfinance to help people lift themselves from poverty. SFU Beedie hosted the event at the Segal […]

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