The Entrepreneurship and Marketing Management 12 class at Burnaby Mountain is taking part in an exciting new program. Starting this year, students in this course will be taking part in the Young Entrepreneur Leadership Launchpad program, (YELL)http://weyell.org/ YELL is a program developed to be an accelerator for students to gain knowledge of all areas of business and entrepreneurship. Students will work through components of a business model while several guest speakers visit our classroom. We will take part in field experiences to support our curriculum, and later this year, students will work in venture groups to develop an innovative, revenue generating, community based business venture – with the mentorship of an entrepreneur from our community. This creative thinking business process will culminate in a venture challenge against YELL teams from other school districts in May.
We have recently been visited by two groups of guest speaker panels. Rattan Bagga, the Co-Founder of YELL, General Manager of Jiva Organics and CEO of New World Foods, spoke to the class about the fundamentals of business leadership, remaining innovative in the organic and natural foods market, and the inception and vision of the YELL program. The discussion was moderated by David Cameron, the Executive Director of YELL Canada. Our second panel of guests was comprised of Dr. Sarah Lubik, the Director of Entrepreneurship for Simon Fraser University, Yash Pachchigar of VAMO Hockey Wearable (www.vamotech.com) and Julius Michael of Orello Hearing Technologies (www.orellohearing.com). Hearing Mr. Pachchigar and Mr. Michael speak about their experience with Dr. Lubik and the SFU Innovates and SFU Venture Connection team both inspired us and taught us the realities of building your own business. We are extremely appreciative of these entrepreneurs spending their time mentoring us, and look forward to using their experiences to develop our own ventures.
