MUN students are driving province’s entrepreneurial success

The city of St. John’s received media attention across the country during the last federal election campaign. An article entitled “St. John’s le resilient,” published in Montreal’s French newspaper La Presse, portrayed Newfoundland and Labrador’s capital city in a positive light of bright future opportunities rather than focusing only on its fiscal challenges.

The article commented on the success of St. John’s eateries that proudly feature local products. It indicated that one out of three Canadians dreams of visiting the province, as it is an outstanding tourist destination. The CBC “Absolutely Canadian” documentary “Silicon Island” that aired in September 2021 also painted a very positive picture of Newfoundland and Labrador’s booming tech start-up sector.

La Presse also highlighted the entrepreneurial success that characterizes St. John’s, which the acquisition of Verafin by NASDAQ last year vividly illustrated.

With such frequent good news about its entrepreneurial success, Newfoundland and Labrador is now often recognized as a place where exciting growth is happening, thanks largely to its student-driven entrepreneurial ecosystem.

An important reason for success of this ecosystem is the Memorial Centre for Entrepreneurship (MCE). Founded in 2015 with financial support from the federal and provincial governments, as well as private donors, and identified as one of the top emerging entrepreneurship centres in the world by the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship

Centres in 2019 and 2020, MCE has become one of the pillars of Newfoundland and Labrador’s entrepreneurial success. The MCE builds a “pipeline” of new startups in the province by inspiring Memorial University students towards entrepreneurship and supporting them in the early stage of development of their startup ideas. Memorial students now work on over 85 startup venture projects per year.

The centre is a wonderful example of what a contemporary community-engaged university should be. Universities are traditionally formed of different faculties and schools with each offering their own undergraduate and graduate programs. Too often, there are limited collaborations between faculties aside from the possibility of students taking elective courses outside their main program of study, and some multidisciplinary research efforts involving faculty members from different academic units.

Because the centre was initially co-founded as a joint venture between Memorial’s Faculty of Business Administration and the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, and has now extended its reach out to all faculties and schools at the university, MCE is removing barriers to collaboration among units.

MCE has grown from an initial intake of 20 students in some form of entrepreneurship programming to now more than 300 annually. Some of those students joined local startups while others created their own. Mce-supported companies have attracted over $55 million in private financing and created over 240 jobs in the last five years. Mce-supported companies like Mysa, inspectar, Colab Software, Metricsflow, Breathesuite and Polyunity are among those that are now transforming the local economy. The role played by Memorial University in the incubation of several homegrown ventures was clearly highlighted in the university economic impact assessment recently conducted by KPMG.

Universities tend to be transactional organizations in which the currency is called “credits.” An instructor’s teaching load is calculated by using a certain number of credits. Students accumulate credits towards the completion of their degree each time they successfully complete a course. As an innovative alternative, students who participate in the activities of the MCE do not earn credits. When they register for MCE workshops, such as “How do I entrepreneur?!”, “Fail Tale Cup” or the “Women’s Powerhouse Series,” they acquire knowledge and tools that will help inspire them to become entrepreneurs, but will not earn them credits towards the completion of their degree. Their own personal intrinsic motivation drives them to engage in entrepreneurial internships (a unique experience during which students work on their own startup venture over a semester) even though it may delay the completion of their academic program.

Memorial’s most motivated students are rewarded with funding to make their startup venture a reality. For example, the Mel Woodward Cup (previously called the Startup Cup) is MCE’S annual competition that helps accelerate the most innovative and high potential student-led start ups at Memorial University. Annually, two student teams respectively win $25,000 and $15,000 of leverageable funding and additional prizes from in-kind partners. Former winners include Colab Software and Breathesuite.

Initiatives like the MCE are good examples of what makes Memorial one of Canada’s most distinguished comprehensive universities. The centre is a safe space where students can express their creativity, experiment, and learn from their failures. Through MCE, students train to think outside of the box and ultimately are inspired to become successful entrepreneurs that will contribute to future prosperity of Newfoundland and Labrador. Indeed, the founders of tomorrow’s Verafin might be among the 300 Memorial students who will participate in MCE entrepreneurial programming this year.

Chances are that the province of Newfoundland and Labrador will continue to draw media attention, but not because of its challenging fiscal situation.

Isabelle Dostaler, Dean, Faculty of Business Administration

Greg Naterer, Outgoing Dean of Engineering Florian Villaumé, Outgoing Director of the Memorial Centre for Entrepreneurship