The Entrepreneurship Centre

The Entrepreneurship Centre (EC) is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs make informed decisions about starting and growing their businesses. The Centre aims to promote economic development through the development of products and services that encourage entrepreneurship and support business growth. The Centre has a staff of dedicated business professionals, who provide advice and counsel to entrepreneurs on a variety of levels. As well, the Centre provides links to other business organizations, seminars and entrepreneurial events, online training and many other tools and resources to assist the budding entrepreneur.

The OCRI Entrepreneurship Centre (external link)has a mandate for promoting entrepreneurship development in the Ottawa area as well as throughout Eastern Ontario, and in particular would like to develop its programs and activities for Youth, as well as other target groups.

The LEAP team’s strategy for pursuing this collaboration is to share content, talent, and outreach activities with the Entrepreneurship Centre by providing target populations access to "pre-entrepreneurship" content, activities, and individual support via distance learning. Its main methods for achieving this goal are to conduct targeted pilot projects, develop resource networks, and share best practices with partners and other stakeholders.

LEAP is sharing the following with the Entrepreneurship Centre:

  • Liaison services from the LEAP Program coach to help in the development of youth targeted entrepreneurship / career development projects.
  • Access to available technology, such as the webcasting environment, for reaching widely-dispersed learning groups.
  • Ad hoc services for outreach activities, training, materials adaptation, or technology development.
  • Content developed for the LEAP Program, consisting of extensive learning modules on various themes of Personal Development, Business development, Community Development, and Lifelong Learning.
  • Research and planning for any potential joint-proposal submissions for funding that the two organizations agree to pursue.

In return, the Entrepreneurship Centre is providing:

  • Access to selected and approved entrepreneurship development content (e.g. e-Business) for sharing and/or adaptation to other delivery contexts.
  • Advisors or guest speakers from its talent roster, who may benefit from gaining experience in distance service delivery within the context of LEAP pilot projects.
  • A means for the LEAP project to provide arms-length services (via the Entrepreneurship Centre) to one of its target populations (Youth) in one of its target regions (the greater National Capital Region).
  • Opportunities to discuss and plan for further exchange and collaboration with the Entrepreneurship Centre’s network of regional contacts, with the goal of promoting and supporting innovative entrepreneurship development services in Eastern Ontario.