At Ryerson University, Experience Ventures gives students the chance to apply their skills to real-world challenges.
Ashnie Badal says the “science” in “Science Discovery Zone” often leads people astray. The SDZ is an incubator at Ryerson University. It’s connected to the Faculty of Science, but it has a broader focus.
Badal is the operations coordinator at SDZ. She says it’s better to think of it as “an entrepreneurial learning space” open to people and startups from different backgrounds. “It really started as a way to help people think of the scientific method as it can be applied to daily learning and problem solving,” Badal says.
The SDZ considers “how the business model overlaps with the scientific method in the sense that you’re making an observation, asking a question, going out to find information to help you validate or invalidate your assumptions.” This approach has a lot in common with entrepreneurial thinking, making the SDZ a perfect host for Experience Ventures.
The real world beckons
The Hunter Hub for Entrepreneurial Thinking created Experience Ventures to give students paid job placements. These placements include hackathons, multi-week challenges and interdisciplinary team projects. All placements give students hands-on experience with real-world problems. Students develop entrepreneurial thinking skills like resiliency, risk management and opportunity spotting.
At Ryerson, the SDZ organized a series of challenges for some 30 students in the fall term. The challenges focused on fintech, cybersecurity, health care, food, accessibility, urban mobility and manufacturing. The SDZ intentionally cast its nest wide. “We wanted to create a big pool because we wanted to bring students from across the university to work together to solve different problems,” says Bidal.
The teams partnered with mentors and startups and got to work developing solutions to specific challenges. As an example, students in the healthcare field were working to improve patient outcomes and improving microbial management methods to address antimicrobial resistance.
Students met with their assigned experts and startups in one-to-one feedback sessions. “It was great to get feedback from the students as they left a meeting,” Badal says. “They would say, ‘Wow, that was really helpful.’ They learned a lot about what they were working on and they heard from someone in a field they were interested in.”
Collaboration is key
Badal says that when the SDZ put out the call for applications, the interest among students was high. She attributes this to two factors: the desire for hands-on learning opportunities and the pandemic. “Giving students the chance to work on a problem where they can apply what they’re learning in the classroom is very valuable,” she says. “Even before the pandemic, we noticed this thirst among students to apply their learning, because they’re not given enough independence to do that in lecture-based courses.”
That thirst only intensified with the arrival of COVID-19. The pandemic meant students couldn’t interact as they had formerly. When Experience Ventures gave students the chance to work in teams, they jumped at it. “Students were even more eager to work with other people and meet experts because they couldn’t go to networking events in person anymore,” Badal says.
The chance to meet new people and collaborate has a host of benefits. Students can socialize and network. The interactions also open up new avenues of education. “It’s nice to see people make connections,” Badal says. “To hear someone say, ‘I learned something from someone in a different year, in a completely different program. I didn’t expect to, but I did.’”
The next challenges
Ryerson is taking part in the Experience Ventures National Hackathon. This year’s focus is on solutions that “can inspire post-secondary institutions to launch initiatives that improve the wellness of students.” At Ryerson, the virtual hackathon will see 20 students (five teams of four) work alongside community innovators to develop pitches. Experience Ventures will pay student participants $325, and the Hunter Hub is providing $5,000 in prize money for the top three finishers.
The SDZ is also offering innovation challenges this term. It has partnered with Metrolinx and the Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst to provide job placements for 30-40 students. Badal says the response has been strong for these positions. It helps that both organizations are well known to students. Metrolinx is a large regional transit agency, and the Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst is Ryerson’s nationally focused centre for innovation in cybersecurity. According to Badal, the presence of Experience Ventures helped land these high-profile partners. “Being able to talk about Experience Ventures as a standalone organization has really helped us connect with these partners,” she says.
Students are also appreciative of the stipends provided by Experience Ventures. The stipends were a big reason Ryerson was keen to get involved with Experience Ventures. The money gives all students the chance to take part, compensating those who might have to take time off work. For Badal, the stipends serve another purpose. “It’s an opportunity for students to get a little bit of an extra bonus along with all the skill development that is happening,” she says.
There are, of course, other bonuses that come with participating in Experience Ventures. Students make valuable professional connections. They also network with peers and come together as teams. Badal says that many of the partners who work with students on their challenges become emotionally invested in the projects. They want to see the students succeed, and they often stay in touch after the challenge has finished.
Call it an example of opportunity spotting. Companies know talent when they see it. Students realize the benefits of ongoing mentorship in bridging the gap between school and work. Both groups are proving the benefits of entrepreneurial thinking.