Whether you are a student, new company or social venture, Experience Ventures offers a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between school and the new world of work, helping create the future today.
Become Future Ready
- Hone entrepreneurial thinking skills, working alongside real world innovators.
- Experience and contribute to new technologies.
- Gain and apply digital skills.
Make an impact
- Design the future through work on cutting-edge projects.
- Energize new companies with the next generation of talent.
- Innovate across disciplines to amplify impact.
Build innovation networks
- Cultivate multi-dimensional innovation networks.
- Promote creativity and collaboration in the workplace with multi-disciplinary talent.
- Build the bridge between school and the new world of work.
Students are paid through Experience Ventures, while participating companies are asked to provide in-kind support, such as time or expertise.
The Experience Ventures pilot program will run from Summer 2021 to Winter 2022, and is funded by the Government of Canada with 10 post-secondary school partnerships at program launch.
For students
Become a changemaker
Experience Ventures creates paid entrepreneurial thinking placements for college and university students with innovative companies in Canada. Our goal is to inspire your creativity, resiliency and future vision – so you can seize your future with the right skill set.
For new companies
Identify early talent
For Canada’s startups and social ventures, identifying the right talent–and the right mindset—is a priority. Your future depends on it. Experience Ventures works with you to create entrepreneurial thinking placements for students from top ranked colleges and universities.
How does Experience Ventures work?
1
Students apply for an entrepreneurial thinking placement facilitated by their school, through Experience Ventures, from Summer 2021 through to Winter 2022.
2
New companies provide in-kind support, such as time, space or expertise, and benefit from having students work on projects at no cost, while students are paid for their time through Experience Ventures at their school.
3
Both students and companies go through an onboarding process and participate in one of five types of entrepreneurial thinking placements. After they have completed the placement, both students and companies evaluate their experiences.
What is an entrepreneurial thinking placement?
Experience Ventures facilitates entrepreneurial thinking placements at schools and new companies across Canada.
Entrepreneurial thinking is being creative in finding innovative solutions. It involves taking initiative, exchanging knowledge across disciplines, being resourceful and learning from experience. It is essential to enriching lives and advancing society.
An entrepreneurial thinking placement is a structured, short term paid opportunity with a startup or social venture that has partnered with a student’s school. The goal is to empower students to develop and apply entrepreneurial thinking skills aimed at making them future ready.
Experience Ventures offers five types of entrepreneurial thinking placements:
Hack-a-thon or tech-a-thon
A one- to two-day event in which companies present students with real world challenges and ask them to provide innovative solutions.
Challenges
Taking place over several weeks, these require students to build out more complete solutions to social, business, design or community challenges.
Projects
Companies present students with a specific project, and the school matches it to talent from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds.
Student-in-Residence
Students selected by the incubator receive unique opportunities to work with several companies over the course of a term.
Interdisciplinary Team Projects
Incubators create teams of students from more than one discipline and provide them with a project for a venture or group of ventures.
Entrepreneurial thinking placements build a bridge between today’s needs and tomorrow’s challenges. Students experience innovation first-hand and learn how to apply its principles in their careers. Startups and social ventures can plan for the future knowing they have the right talent to power their growth.
Experience Ventures is funded by the Government of Canada and will be delivered in partnership with 10 of the country’s leading colleges and universities from coast to coast.
What are entrepreneurial thinking skills?
Entrepreneurial thinking placements teach students five key entrepreneurial thinking skills and help them become future ready for careers in the innovation economy:
Resiliency
Develop a growth mindset to persevere through challenges.
Opportunity recognition
Reframe problems as opportunities for innovation.
Action orientation
Accelerate learning through real-world feedback.
Risk management
Develop strategies to manage ambiguity.
Systems / trans-disciplinary thinking
Design innovative solutions across traditional boundaries.
We believe entrepreneurial thinking isn’t limited to a personality type or a discipline, or to entrepreneurs alone. It is an accessible set of skills that everyone can leverage to make an impact, big or small, in any career.
If you are interested in participating in an Experience Ventures entrepreneurial thinking placement, please request to be contacted now.
We look forward to connecting soon.