Memorial University entrepreneurship centre recognized internationally for experiential learning culture

Memorial Centre for Entrepreneurship (MCE) at Memorial University in Newfoundland has ranked in the top five emerging entrepreneurship centres in the world, according to the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers (GCEC). MCE was the only Canadian post-secondary entrepreneurship centre to be recognized in the emerging entrepreneurship centre category at the annual awards presentation in Stockholm, Sweden.

The GCEC award ranks entrepreneurship centres along four measures: momentum, funding, successes, and differentiation. In terms of momentum, MCE has achieved exponential growth in less than three years, growing from 20 students to more than 300 since it launched in 2017. Twenty-three MCE-supported businesses have already been incorporated. The centre has also attracted $4.7 million from local businesses, donors, a private foundation and provincial and federal governments.

The most successful startups to emerge from the program include Colab Software, an engineering design software firm and the first Atlantic Canadian company to be accepted into the influential Silicon Valley seed accelerator Y-Combinator; smart thermostat company Mysa, one of 10 Canadian companies to join the latest cohort in the Lazaridis Institute’s Scaleup Program; and Breathesuite, which makes an add-on device to help people properly use their inhalers, and received $550,000 in private funding this week. Combined, these three companies have raised $5.5 million in investment.

Focus on Real-World Problems

When designing the program, director Florian Villaumé studied other post-secondary entrepreneurship centres in Canada and abroad. "The thing that we realized is there are a lot of supports provided to students who have ideas," he said in an interview with RE$EARCH MONEY. "The main thing that we were thinking about is: What about before? How do we help students find good problems to solve?"

To address this gap, Villaumé devised an experiential learning model, offering students opportunities to do "Entrepreneurial Internships" at local companies to look for inefficiencies or problems that can lead to new startups. Brett Vokey, founder of Breathesuite, spent his entrepreneurial internship at a local hospital, where he interviewed patients and determined that most people with asthma aren't using their inhalers correctly. The idea for his business emerged from these conversations.

Once students have a workable idea, the next stage is to do an  “Entrepreneurial Work Term," whereby they can receive bursaries and university credits to work full-time on their businesses. This emphasis on experiential learning and solving real-world problems is one of the key differentiating factors that made the centre stand out to the GCEC committee, says Villaumé.

Community Support

Villaumé has also sought to press the advantage of operating in the relatively small community of St. John's, Newfoundland. "There’s only one degree of separation between people," he says. "If I want to reach out to the CEO of a local company, I can find someone very easily to help me connect to them." Being able to collaborate easily  with stakeholders has enabled the centre to build a strong and supportive network, Villaumé explains. "We find a lot of companies want to help, because they want to build the local economy, and they want to keep smart young entrepreneurs here."

The value of training a generation of entrepreneurs goes beyond counting the number of new startups that grow directly out of the program, says Villaumé. He's anticipating a second wave of entrepreneurs who didn’t find a good problem to solve while at MCE, but once they've had a chance to go into industry, they come back with new ideas. Furthermore, the students who train at the centre become great candidates to be hired by startups and companies that want to innovate. "They can be entrepreneurial inside a startup, because they share the same mindset," says Villaumé.

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