News

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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Changing the Face of Sustainable Energy: Alumni Startup Moment Energy Closes $3.5 Million Seed Round

Nov 19, 2021

Moment Energy, a sustainable startup transforming second-life electric vehicle batteries and a client of SFU’s Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection incubator program, recently closed a $3.5 million seed funding round led by Version One Ventures. Co-founded by four graduates from SFU’s Mechatronic Systems Engineering Program, Moment Energy creates sustainable energy storage systems by repurposing retired electric vehicle batteries. The startup’s solution has been installed in off-grid areas to reduce diesel consumption and enables a transition to renewable energy.  To date […]

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SFU Beedie alumnus wins HR industry award

Sep 21, 2021

Ali Najaf (BBA ’18) has been named among the inaugural list of Young Influencers by Canadian HR Reporter magazine. Najaf, who is a Human Resources Specialist with construction and engineering firm Kiewit, was recognized for his outstanding involvement in the HR community, including volunteering and mentoring, writing opinion articles in the press, and his commitment to supporting diversity in HR. The award was given based on demonstrated career progression and development in HR, and experience […]

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Executive MBA student fought back from a near-fatal accident to complete his degree

Jun 14, 2021

Everyone receiving their degree at the June 2021 convocation will have their own stories of challenges overcome, but few can be as dramatic as that of Erik Brinkman, who will collect his Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) degree from the Beedie School of Business at the ceremony. In February 2019, halfway through his second semester of the program, Brinkman and his wife travelled to Cancun, Mexico, for their honeymoon. On the first night, a tropical rainstorm […]

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SFU Beedie students recognized in Surrey Board of Trade Top 25 Under 25

Apr 26, 2021

Seven SFU students and alumni, including three from SFU Beedie, are among this year’s Surrey Board of Trade Top 25 Under 25 winners. They were honoured during the virtual awards ceremony on April 22. The seven SFU winners are from the Beedie School of Business, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Applied Sciences. Their contributions and experiences and diverse and highlight the great work that they do in Surrey. The […]

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SFU Beedie Executive MBA alumni win SFU’s largest entrepreneurship competition

Apr 22, 2021

Labora Consulting Services Corp. has won the top prize in SFU’s 10th annual Coast Capital Savings Venture Prize competition, taking home a $35,000-prize package. Labora’s AgTech platform provides a simple and secure digital payroll service to farmers enabling their seasonal agricultural workers to transfer remittances back home. The founders, Rene Blanco, Jaspal Brar and Ryan Klatt developed the idea for Labora while completing the Executive MBA program at SFU Beedie. In 2019, Labora won the Top Idea […]

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SFU’s largest gift creates unprecedented scholarship to empower equity-deserving students

Dec 8, 2020

Simon Fraser University is pleased to announce that alumnus Lance Uggla and his family are committing $34.1 million to support 10 exceptional undergraduate students per year to study at SFU. This is the largest gift ever received in the university’s history and the largest gift of its kind ever given to a Canadian university. The gift will establish the Uggla Family Scholarship for students who may not otherwise be able to afford a university education […]

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Olympian lands ‘dream job’ with help of Management of Technology MBA

Oct 20, 2020

As a former Olympic swimmer, Scott Dickens is accustomed to moving fast. Even so, he was surprised by how quickly the Management of Technology (MOT) MBA program at SFU’s Beedie School of Business helped him switch lanes into a new career. Dickens entered the two-year, part-time MOT MBA program at SFU Beedie’s Segal Graduate School in downtown Vancouver in 2018. He managed his studies alongside his role as a business development manager at RBC. He was hoping […]

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Indigenous student weaves together traditional knowledge with business education

Jun 22, 2020

The Executive MBA in Indigenous Business Leadership (EMBA IBL) at SFU’s Beedie School of Business is designed to weave together executive business education with traditional Indigenous knowledge, and one student graduating from the program in 2020 has literally done just that. As a part of her final project, artist Angela George (qʷənat), who is from the Squamish Nation and lives and works at Tsleil-Waututh, created a weaving that represents complex models of governance in a […]

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SFU Beedie alumnus takes healthy eating to the great outdoors

Dec 16, 2019

From tree planting in remote areas of BC to pitching his start-up business on CBC’s Dragons’ Den—via the European Union and a stint in corporate banking—Denis Mikhailov’s career path has been anything but orthodox. Mikhailov, a graduate of SFU Beedie’s Full Time MBA program, is the Founder and CEO of Nomad Nutrition Ltd, a venture that creates healthy dehydrated meals aimed at outdoor enthusiasts. A keen climber and adventurer who would take week-long excursions into […]

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