The Entrepreneurial Effect

The Entrepreneurial Effect is an initiative by entrepreneurs to create a forum to exchange practical and pragmatic advice. The first product is a book that provides practical advice to entrepreneurs. Over 25 experts contributed an article each and the book is meant to be a knowledge source for those decisions faced by start-ups.

Upcoming Issue on Tech Entrepreneurship

The upcoming issue is being prepared for publication on August 1st. This month's authors include:

Brian Hurley, an entrepreneur and CEO at Purple Forge, provides an overview of ecosystems models and why they matter. Brian also highlights, through numerous examples, how it is possible to take advantage of the related, like-minded and even competitive players in an ecosystem.

Carlo Daffara, head of research at Conecta, has conducted a survey of over 200 open source companies and provided what amounts to a map of entrepreneurship in that space. Carlo clearly demonstrates the economic advantages of open source across a wide variety of business models and commercialization approaches.

Peter Carbone, an ICT executive and Coral CEA champion, discusses a new approach to commercialization through the creation of a new ecosystem for communications enabled applications. This is an exciting effort in terraforming a space to create a new ecosystem.

Gordon Quinn, Co-Founder & CEO of iPic Innovations Incorporated, writes about entrepreneurship and users' experience in a world that assumes the Internet. The Internet was certainly disruptive and spawned a number of new ecosystems. Gordon looks at how to disrupt for gain in that context.

John Boden, CTO & Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Movius Interactive, takes on the issue of entrepreneurship within existing enterprises. Innovation and culture are closely linked and he explores the role open source can play in stimulating both.

James Bowen, an entrepreneur and adjunct professor at uOttawa’s Telfer School of Management, considers a number of the attributes of the entrepreneur. James provides a perspective on the importance of the quality of thinking and quality of people with respect to success in all aspects of a venture.

Dave Hudson from Lead to Win is guest editor and I think you'll agree that he has done an excellent job of finding authors to discuss the editorial theme of Tech Entrepreneurship.

2009 Lead to Win Program

Ontario's Talent First Network today announced the 2009 Lead to Win program to be held in Ottawa.

The dates of the first 2009 six-day training program are:
- Tuesday May 19, Wed May 20, and Thurs May 21
- Tuesday June 23, Wed June 24, and Thurs June 25

They wish to recruit 30 excellent participants for the May-June session of the LTW program. Each participant must be willing and able to establish and grow a technology business in Canada's Capital Region. Each business is expected to employ six knowledge workers over the next three years.

The second 2009 session is scheduled for October and November 2009. We will also recruit 30 participants for the October-November session.

You can read about the results from the first Lead to Win program in Blood on the Tracks: 6 Years of Technical Entrepreneurship in Ottawa.

TiEQuest

The deadline for submissions to TiEQuest 2009 is January 30th. From the website:

TiEQuest is an annual business venture competition held in Toronto to encourage entrepreneurship, engage emerging entrepreneurial talent and to create an ecosystem of entrepreneurship. TiEQuest was started in 2005 with the purpose of spawning businesses. This competition helps generate new ventures and gives entrepreneurs the encouragement and the support to turn their dreams into reality.

TiEQuest 2009 will provide contestants an opportunity to present to well-known angel investors, venture capitalists and fund managers. Sponsoring firms will be offering an “Expression of Interest” for investments of up to $1,000,000 to top teams. In addition, the winners will receive various cash prizes and incentives exceeding $150,000 in value.

Contestants are expected to come from business schools, life sciences, engineering and technology departments of various universities in Ontario, Entrepreneur Assistance programs of the Ontario Ministry of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Board of Trade, Business Development Bank of Canada and Export Development Corporation. In addition, a number of contestants will be referrals from banks, accounting firms, law firms and other entrepreneurial associations.