From problem to prototype
CBU innovation and entrepreneurship centre to ask students to start dreaming up solutions to everyday troubles
SYDNEY — A new entrepreneurial hub is opening in Sydney but this one is solely focused on postsecondary students and recent graduates.
Mohammed Elghamry graduated from Cape Breton University with a bachelor of business administration degree a couple of weeks ago and has been focusing on developing a startup for some time now.
The 21-year-old from Egypt said he sees the new innovation and entrepreneurship centre at the university as somewhat of a playground where students can experiment, toss ideas around and generally hang out. “People can hang out for entrepreneurship’s sake and get to know a lot of other people’s ideas, feel safe and … go crazy sometimes because you have to get really creative,” Elghamry said.
Under the direction of the Cape Breton Partnership, the centre is an interdisciplinary space where students looking at a problem can seek out potential solutions.
The space is located down a quiet hallway across from the cafeteria. Other than several long tables on wheels with accompanying chairs and a couple of dozen colourful notes on the back wall, there’s not much else to look at.
The approximately seven-metre by four-metre room that seats 30 people can be reconfigured on a moment’s notice.
By the time it’s ready to open in September, video conferencing technology and projection equipment will be installed, several whiteboards will hang on the walls and “a lot of post-it notes” will be found around the room, said Darren MacDonald, the new executive director of the innovation and entrepreneurship centre.
“Some come with an idea; some of the students have something they’ve been picking away at or that they’re interested in,” he said.
“Some have no clue and are really here for the experience and want to see what it’s all about.”
MacDonald is also the manager of the Island Sandbox, the universityled program to support entrepreneurship. Much will depend on what students want to see in the new space. There has already been some brainstorming of what may and may not be possible for the centre, MacDonald said.
“Right here we use a lot of clay, sketching, cardboard, duct tape to really just get something built so we can think with our hands.”
MacDonald said the centre will act as a “pipeline” to the Nova Scotia Power Makerspace located at the New Dawn Centre for Social Innovation in north end Sydney.
Island Sandbox participant, Mohid Kumer, believes the innovation and entrepreneurship centre holds promise as a place to work on early-stage prototypes before getting hands very dirty in the hands-on makerspace.
“At the Island Sandbox we were looking for a 3-D printer so that we could actually visualize what it could look like but now with the makerspace we have all sorts of tools we can use to make it a reality,” said Kumer, 24, a CBU mechanical engineering student who is working full-time at the NSP Makerspace.
“I would love that people who are in programs at (CBU) to come over there with their designs and maybe we can help them in making some business over there, helping them solve problems people are facing.”
The makerspace has three highend 3D printers, a robotics lab, a computer station for computeraided design and office space available to members for a fee.
Makerspace director Matthew Swan, who attended Thursday’s announcement at CBU, said the innovation and entrepreneurship centre offers “a very complementary set of supports” in the early stages of product development.
“If somebody comes here with a business idea they can get all of the business support here. Kick them down the road and they can absolutely get the technical support that they need to actually make the prototype,” Swan said.
The makerspace currently has a membership of about 40 people, with 60 to 70 who have completed safety orientation, he said.
The Cape Breton Partnership wants to open other physical spaces for students and entrepreneurs across the island that will create a “rural innovation district model,” as part of the wider Creative Island Network, said Partnership president and CEO Carla Arsenault, with the use of technology and programming that’s uniform across all of the sites.
She said work is ongoing with local partners to develop spaces outside of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality but she couldn’t say when or where that may happen.
Funding for the CBU innovation and entrepreneurship centre is coming from the Cape Breton Partnership and the university. However, Arsenault said, the budget is still being negotiated as work continues on the “finer details” of what the centre will look like.