It is hard to imagine a college strong in applied research like Algonquin without young, talented people who dream of inventing cool things and starting big businesses.
Godfrey Joekumar and James Thibaudeau, however, are among these people. They are not only pursuing their own dream but creating a playground for other like-minded people to gather and flourish.
Their creation is StartUp, an entrepreneurial club which has attracted more than 200 students from different programs.
“There wasn’t really a strong club to teach us about the start-up lifestyle,” explained Joekumar, a senior computer programming student. “There was an entrepreneurship club, but it wasn’t focused on more technical stuff.”
So Joekumar moved on and founded his own club. The name StartUp came from Sam Altman’s “How to Start a Startup” series of lessons. Soon he was joined by his now best friend Thibaudeau, another first-year computer programming student.
What began as a club for computer programming students only soon branched out, as it acquired members from other faculties.
“For you to do a start-up, if there’s only the technical side, it’s really hard,” said Joekumar. “You need the business side to come. And then when you put everything together, you have a product in the end.”
StartUp’s main activity is to provide support to students who lack some of the elements needed on their way to becoming an entrepreneur. Whether it is a lack of ideas to start a business, a lack of tools to make a product or a lack of connections to promote your products, there’s always somebody in the club who is able and willing to help.
The school is expressively glad about StartUp, especially the Entrepreneur Office.
“We enjoy working together,” said Leanna Verrucci, Algonquin’s entrepreneurship manager. “We have worked together on many initiatives and are scheduled to do even more in the upcoming months.”
The only shortcoming is that because there are so many people passionate about entrepreneurship at the college, there are too many workshops and seminars being put on by the different clubs, which makes coordinating them difficult. But it’s a “good” problem to have, according to Verrucci.
What makes StartUp stand out from other entrepreneurial clubs, however, is the help from professors, mentors and expert speakers coming to frequent meetings held at the Student Commons.
“They’re like family,” said Thibaudeau.
They played a role as referees in StartUp’s hackathons, which were also sponsored by the school.
They also participate in StartUp’s meetings and instruct members on how to get access to school funding, how to submit your idea to people at the Applied Research and Innovation Office and − perhaps even more important − potential investors around the city.
While Joekumar is about to graduate from the college and transfer the leadership to Thibaudeau, he has learned and gained a lot from his entrepreneurship at Algonquin.
“It’s a lot of work. But when you see the effort: all effort paid off really well,” said Joekumar.