Entrepreneurship 101 – free courses by CIBC and MaRS

Interested in learning more about entrepreneurship? Looking to start a new venture? Look no further! Entrepreneurship 101 is a free, non-credit introductory course about entrepreneurship offered by MaRS. Over 29 weeks, Entrepreneurship 101 takes you through all the steps of building a successful business.

In this lecture, get a sense of the scope of the course and how it applies to your start-up. Future lecture topics include financing, business modelling, defining markets, hiring teams, protecting intellectual property and raising capital.

Part of CIBC Presents Entrepreneurship 101

Register on MaRS webpage

Get government funding for your technology-related business – SR&ED seminar

SRED Unlimited and RBC Steeles && Dufferin branch are hosting a SR&ED seminar on October 13, 2010. The event starts at 6pm. Admission is free.

Come learn about SR&ED (Scientific Research & Experimental Development), an incentive program by the Canadian government that refunds companies involved in Research and Development (R&D).

If your company is dealing with technology, or at least has production environment, there is a good probability that you are entitled to some refund of your R&D expenses. Come to our seminar to find out.

Keywords: Government funding, technology, startups, small and medium business, tax refund, software, hardware, telecom, printing, mechanical engineering, food technology, biotech, free, event

Intended For: Companies that spend money on creating or modifying products or processes through experimenting. Any company that deals with technology (software and hardware development, machinery, printing etc., even food technology and biotech) may qualify for SRED.

Register on LinkedIn or Facebook.

My article for Blog Idol contest: Resources for technology-related startups in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

This article contains some useful information that I inevitably accumulated over the past few years, as a SR&ED consultant and as someone who has recently started a business. It might save you some time that took me to figure out all this. Good luck with your startup!

Various camps, startup drinks, green drinks

Startup entrepreneurs and people who has been there and done that regularly meet to have a drink, exchange battle stories, get a sound advice and find a potential business partner or even an angel investor. Startup Drinks is a simple concept: a grassroots effort to make sure startup folks get in touch and stay in touch.

The same refers to Green Drinks which is a casual, monthly forum for environmentally-oriented individuals to have a few drinks, mingle and toss around ideas.

By the way, the next Green Drinks together with Startup Drinks will happen on May 26 at Grace O’Malleys – 14 Duncan Street, Toronto, from 5:45 to 9:00.

Various camps are also held in Toronto every month. See the description of some in this article. The admission to them is affordable or free. (Some impose a nominal fee to ensure that people who register do indeed show up, and your admission pays for your first drink.) Among other nice get-togethers, I should mention Product Camp and Girl Geeks Dinner.

Democamps

Democamps are such an important feature in the life of Toronto technology scene that it is worth a separate mention. An evening of beer, cocktails and tech demos for designers, developers & marketers, Democamp became quite an institution. It was conceived in Toronto, but now there are democamps in other cities and towns, too.

http://democamp.com/

Creative spaces for independent entrepreneurs

When you work from home, it is very difficult to concentrate! Independent business owners know that better than anyone. Besides, sitting between the four walls tends to get lonely. Because of that, several creative spaces opened in Toronto. Their founders, entrepreneurs themselves, formed a community of like-minded people and opened spaces downtown, offering reasonable monthly rates in a comfortable space. Born from the feeling of collaboration and connection found at events such as BarCamp and tech conferences, coworking is the social interaction of independent entrepreneurs, consultants, freelancers, developers, and writers out of their homes and cafes and into a creative space. A coworking facility is the shared office space for these individuals, where they can work independently in a social way. Rachel Young and Wayne Lee cofounded Camaraderie. Tonya Surman founded Centre for Social Innovation at 215 Spadina, and CSI recently acquired another building in the Annex to expand their space.

(Read more at BlogIdol website…)

My article for Blog Idol contest: Cloudcamp 2. Cloud Computing: Return on Investment

This is another session from Cloudcamp that was held in Toronto on April 6, 2010. (Find the article about the first session, with links to the CloudCamp sound files and some presentations, here.) The session was facilitated by Dave Nielsen and discussed the ROI of cloud computing. The following questions were raised:

What is cloud computing anyway?

How do we measure the ROI of migration to the cloud?

What’s the cost of intangible benefits?

When does it make sense for a startup to use the cloud?

Not all of them got answered but some certainly did, and the answers given were very interesting.

(Note: I did not catch the names of all the people who answered questions, so if one of them is you, please let me know so I can acknowledge it properly! – Tania)

Dave Nielsen: I’ve been saying, “Here’s what I think cloud computing is,” over and over and over again and it’s changed a little bit every time, but actually hasn’t changed much at all in the last like 10 times I’ve done it. But it still could. I’m hoping to get to the 80/20 rule where I come up with 20 percent of what is the main thing of cloud computing and 80 percent of the people agree. But basically, here it is: so you know, you guys know the triangle, the pyramid, cloud computing, Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, Software as a Service, right? Right here. This is a very, very simple, like over-simplified definition of cloud computing, types of cloud computing.

So Infrastructure as a Service is really providing a service to IT folks. And Platform as a Service is really providing a service to developers where they can put their code. And then Software as a Service is providing a service to business users who don’t want to have to set up anything, don’t want to have to install software on their desktop, right? That was basically the three types of cloud computing but if you don’t know who you’re talking to and they ask you what cloud computing is and you don’t know what type of person they are, or you simply ask yourself, what do all these things have in common, it turns out they really have, in my opinion, three +1 things in common. And the first one is super obvious. What do you think that is?

(Read more at BlogIdol website…)

Free Entrepreneurship 101 Lecture Series starts at MaRS again

Interested in learning more about entrepreneurship? Looking to start a new venture? Wondering what can be done for your career during this recessionary climate? Look no further!  Sponsored by CIBC, MaRS offers a free, non-credit introductory course on entrepreneurship that introduces you to the nuts and bolts of building a business.

http://marsdd.com/mars/Events/Event-Calendar/Ent101

Free Microsoft software for startups

The Linked .Net Users Group (LIDNUG) is now a BizSpark Network Partner.

BizSpark program run by Microsoft gives you access to all kinds of Microsoft software for development, test and production. There is no cost to enroll and you pay just USD$100 when you exit the program.

LIDNUG is now a BizSpark Network Partner. To get access to BizSpark, send an email, and LIDNUG will respond to you with a code you can use to register.

For more details about what you get through the program, please visit “What Do I Get”.

Startup Eligibility Requirements

An eligible startup must have the following characteristics at the time of joining:

* Actively engaged in development of a software-based product or service that will form a core piece of its current or intended business
* Privately held
* In business for less than 3 years, and
* Less than US $1 million in annual revenue

Grants in digital media

If you are planning to develop an application in Flash and make it available for some mobile devices (e.g. cellphones, Blackberry), you might try and apply for this grant sponsored by Adobe:
http://www.openscreenproject.org/developers/get_started.html

There is also C3 Ontario program for postsecondary graduates in digital media (DATA members, OCAD and UOIT students):
http://c3ontario.com/documents/StartaBusiness_Program_Guidelines.pdf

Free entrepreneurship lecture series at MaRS

MaRS is hosting a series of FREE entrepreneurship lectures on Wednesdays, 5.30pm to 6.30pm, from October 1 to April 29 by CIBC.

http://marsdd.com/mars/Events/Event-Calendar/Ent101.html

The series targets researchers in biological and physical sciences and engineering. It assumes no prior knowledge of business and offers lectures on a diverse range of topics including finding financing, defining markets, hiring teams and protecting intellectual property. You can view the course outline below.
DESIGNED FOR

* Graduate Students
* Post-Doctorate Candidates
* Faculty
* Technicians
* Other scientific or engineering researchers who have an interest in creating a company to exploit the results of their research

(I’d go but it clashes with my technical writing class. May try during winter break though. It should be a great networking event, if nothing else.)