On November 9th, business and entrepreneurship students from Collingwood Collegiate Institute (CCI) went on a field trip to Kitchener-Waterloo to receive a first-hand look at the tech and startup hub that is continually growing at Communitech, Velocity, and the University of Waterloo.
The day kicked off with a guided tour of Communitech, which is a non-profit that helps tech companies start, grow and succeed. The students were interested to learn that Communitech is home to many tech companies, from startups to large corporations, who are working together to come up with innovative ideas.
After a tour of Communitech, the students toured the Velocity Garage located in the same building. The Velocity Garage incubator is home to more than 80 early-stage startups building technology-based businesses. Velocity is an entrepreneurship program at the University of Waterloo and the largest free startup incubator in the world.
After visiting the Velocity Garage and hearing about the Velocity program at the University of Waterloo, it made sense to stop on the University’s campus next. The students had lunch on campus, followed by a photo scavenger hunt to explore points of interest around the campus. The students enjoyed their time exploring, and met afterwards at the location of Velocity Science to learn specifically about the science branch of the Velocity program.
Overall, the students said they were inspired after the day spent in Kitchener-Waterloo. Donna Thomson, a teacher at CCI who helped organize the trip for her entrepreneurship class, said that “a few of the students said that before the trip they weren’t considering university, but now they’re excited about the thought of going.” Thomson happily added, “as an educator, that makes this trip a home run!”
The South Georgian Bay Small Business Enterprise Centre was proud to sponsor and help organize this trip to expose local students to entrepreneurship resources in the province and to inspire more students to consider the path of entrepreneurship and furthering their education!