Entrepreneurship UBCO
203-460 Doyle Ave V1Y 0C2 Kelowna, BC, Canada

Congratulations to our e@UBCO Alumni Entrepreneurs of the Year! Pouria Mehrabi, Arpan Kandola, Michael Oyatsi and @Mohamed Gamal! Your passion, perseverance and hard work in building a venture while balancing your careers is commendable!!! And thank you so much to our sponsors of these awards: Central Okanagan Economic Development Commission and alumni UBC Okanagan Campus!!!

Terrific piece in Castanet on our Entrepreneurship UBCO MNP Quick Pitch winners!!! Congratulations to all our winners and very special thanks to our amazing vo...lunteer business mentors who helped our teams achieve such tremendous results - including judges/mentors: Grant Lawrence, Rose Bhojani, Kyle Wiltshire, Henry King, Abhinav Kanti and Fritz Kipfer! Thank you MC/mentor David Jenkins! And thank you to all of our mentor team including signature sponsor Gary Parmar as well as Michael Macaulay and Paul Matthews, P.Eng. founding sponsors with Lawson Lundell, Sherri Faloon, Alexandra Nuth, Warren MacPhee, Alex Miller, Kara James, Liza Wood, Hugh Faloon, Saskia Battersby, Adrien Niblock, Myles M. McGovern, Derek Gratz, David Saltman, Clemens Kaiser, Sarah Sutherland, @Jared Cook and @Mitchell Grant ! This year was the best to date thanks to your combined efforts during an extraordinarily challenging time. We couldn't be more grateful! See more

Tonight UBCO’s top entrepreneurial teams faced off at the 3rd annual @MNP Quick Pitch Challenge judged by the @Valhalla Angels for $75,000 in prizes. This annual fast paced competition is the culmination of an intensive six-month fall/winter Mentor 2 Market accelerator program for UBCO students from undergraduate and graduate programs as well as faculty, recent alumni and staff. Thanks to our signature sponsorship from MNP LLP our top 3 winning teams take home a total of $10...Continue reading

The Quick Pitch 2021 Audience Choice Award results are in!! This year's winner is team Elite A2Z! Congratulations team!! Thank you to everyone who voted! If you missed the LIVE production, please click on the video further down our feed to watch now.

Concerned about your drinking water, flooding, lake levels, property values, development plans, salmon populations and/or availability of trails and open spaces? Building Okanagan Flood Resiliency Utilizing Natural Assets - takes you into the field with experts in land use, water quality and urban infrastructure to learn how forests, streams and wetlands are being reclaimed to cost effectively mitigate flooding and filter water - radically cutting costs for taxpayers and deve...lopers. Don't miss this fascinating 60 minute documentary on the watershed ecosystem that drives our economic well being and quality of life. This Leadership Forum is sponsored by Entrepreneurship UBCO and Lawson Lundell. https://youtu.be/E0LOYE9ML6E

e@UBCO Virtual Leadership Forum - Building Okanagan Flood Resiliency October 21st: 5-6pm Learn about the vulnerability assessment tools, modelling techniques, and low cost, natural resiliency strategies being created to protect our region.

Register today for the upcoming Virtual Leadership Forum - Building Okanagan Flood Resiliency. https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9pEYbFgDAnsmLDn Full program details within:

Thank you Pela Case, MNP LLP and Lawson Lundell LLP!!!

Register today: https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9pEYbFgDAnsmLDn

Sign into UBC Okanagan Homecoming at Home and check in with Ria Kitsch BBA '06 and Trent Kitsch - the cool entrepreneurial duo that built SAXX Underwear and built and sold DOJA Cannabis to Canopy Growth Corporation at their southwest Kelowna winery Kitsch Wines! Learn their secrets to building great companies together!

We welcomed 15 UBC Okanagan-related venture teams and 30+ business leader mentors to our Fall/Winter Entrepreneurship UBCO program this week! First up - our kick-off VODcast where e@UBCO Managing Director, Camille Saltman interviews savvy serial entrepreneurs Ria Kitsch UBCO BBA '06 and Trent Kitsch! Trent founded SAXX Underwear while completing his MBA in Entrepreneurship at UWO - met Ria and together they built a super successful biz and sold part to Niche Brands....then ...Trent founded award winning Kitsch Construction and the duo founded Kitsch Wines. Then on to founding DOJA Cannabis which merged and was acquired by Canopy Growth Corporation. Watch it on YouTube below or see as part of UBC Okanagan Homecoming at Home for the next 3 days - https://ok.ubc.ca/homecoming/ Or visit our new e@UBCO website - https://entrepreneurship.ok.ubc.ca/program/vodcast/ and check out this and 3 other helpful COVID-related business videos. See more

Terrific UBC Okanagan story on 3 of the 53 venture teams Entrepreneurship UBCO has coached since we launched the Mentor 2 Market program 2 years ago! The number of hires is up to 105 since press time and $2.3M raised! Learn more about Ephraim Nowak, Kenneth Chau, Cailan Libby and Vincent Loi!

Our friends at the Angel Forum and Accelerate Okanagan are hosting a summit this week where they will discuss the ins and outs of early stage investing through the crisis. If this is up your alley and you would like to join, please register here! https://www.angelforum.org//angel-forum-in-the-okanagan-ke

Looking to meet new people on campus this semester? Levity is an app that lets you join with your existing friends and meet new people together. Developed by an e@UBCO program graduate and University of British Columbia alumni, friends on the app can explore profiles together, group chat with each other and new people, and set each other up with new people too. With the upcoming semester being remote, Levity is a great way to stay social this semester and meet people on camp...us. Levity is available on iOS and Android right now. Meet students from across BC including UBC, UBCO, UVIC, and TRU. Search ‘Levity Match’ on the app stores to find it.

Exciting news from our friends at Accelerate Okanagan! If you're in the market for workspace in the North Okanagan, go check them out!

Useful report for venture teams tackling problems with the supply chain and also seeking investment.

"WEKH’s report indicated that women are less likely to seek and receive financing than men, with women entrepreneurs’ likelihood being 32.6 percent versus men’s being 38 percent. The report also noted that firms owned by men are more likely to receive venture capital or angel funding and other forms of leverage such as trade credit or capital leasing. This disparity is consistent with what has been highlighted in a number of other studies surveying the landscape for women entrepreneurs in Canada. Even for investors, most LP dollars are invested in funds that have all-male leadership. WEKH also noted that SMEs with under 20 employees have been the hardest hit during the pandemic. And because women are more likely to own newer and smaller businesses, they are the most affected by the pandemic."