July 6, 2010

CYBF G20 Youth Entrepreneur Summit Addresses International Challenges

On June 21st- 22nd, I was fortunate to have been invited to attend the first ever G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit hosted by Canadian Youth Business Foundation as Canadian representatives of an influential entrepreneurial organization, Impact Entrepreneurship Group.

CYBF has had an astounding success rate of 93% of starting businesses, with a new business starting every 14.5 hours. There were over 200 international delegates in attendance with students from all 20 participating countries in the G20 summit. Over the two days, Alex Shipillo, Impact’s National President joined by Ray Cao, Impact’s 2008 President, Vino Jeyapalan, the 2010 Impact National Conference Chair and I attended keynote sessions, exchanged ideas with the delegates, and had the opportunity to network with other entrepreneurs in this space from around the globe. The goal of the discussion points was formed into a 5 point communique that was delivered to the G20 Business Summit.

The points on the communique were:

1) Access to Funding
2) Creating an Entrepreneurial Culture
3) Coordination among Organizations
4) Education and Training
5) Taxation and Regulation

Eric Boyko, one of the most inspiring keynote speeches

A few of my favourite quotes taken from the summit include:

  • “You have to be able to look past the people who will tell you that you’re going to fail”. – Wes Hall, President and Chief Executive Officer, Kingsdale Shareholder Services Inc.
  • “Learn to enjoy every moment of the process. Believe in your vision, have a strong conviction, surround yourself with excellent people”. -Tara Renaud, President and Chief Executive Officer, Thermo-Trans
    (who’s also a mother of 7 and with her husband as her partner in business)
  • “Difference between winners & losers is the time of recovery”. – Eric Boyko, Co-founder and President, Stingray Digital
  • “Entrepreneur values: Vision. Delegation. Respect shareholders. PMA – positive mental attitude. Selling”. – Eric Boyko, Co-founder and President, Stingray Digital
  • Tom Jenkins compares being an entrepreneur in a fast paced organization to an ice cream cone in July. You gotta act fast.
  • “Business is not something you do to make a living, it’s something you do to make a life”. – Sophia Aggelonitis, Minister of Consumer Services

The CYBF summit was an amazing experience to be part of. Canada is now on the map as one of the four founding countries of the G20 Young Entrepreneur Alilance along with Italy, Republic of Korea, and France. It was also officially announced the next summit will be taking place in Nice, France in June 2011. I’m so grateful to have been part of this experience and I had met so many amazing people with such unique stories and backgrounds. Thank you to CYBFCanada for being our gracious host!

Networking at MaRS. Can you spot me in the crowd?

If you were unable to attend, the entire event was on live stream and it appears that there will be a web archive coming soon on their website. For a transcript of the tweeting that took place, click here.

Till the next one!

Source: All pictures were taken from CYBF Canada’s photostream.

June 9, 2010

Start of Something New

There is so much I want to say about the past four weeks; I don’t think there are words that can capture it all. Started the life of a working career woman, and I have to say I have been loving every single moment of it. It all seems to make so much sense now! All these years of questioning what profession I’m going to fall in, where I’m going to go after university, I never really had much direction to be honest. I became quite involved during my university days to give everything a try and so much of what I’ve given in volunteer hours have come back tenfold in the number of opportunities and amazing people that have crossed my path. And now I am certain that this is exactly where I want to be, constantly learning and challenging myself to continuously grow. There is still so much that I don’t know.

Over the last weekend, I participated in Edelman Toronto’s Little Give, a 48 hour charity initiative supporting 10 local charities and non-profit organizations. It was intense, it was fun, and it was emotional (in a good way!). It was an amazing opportunity to work with people from all different practices that I would never have had the chance to work with before. I was teamed up with Second Harvest, a charity that rescues perishable food and donates it to approximately 250 social services in the GTA. From an initial meeting with them, we were given an ask which became our mission to complete in a matter of 2 days. I was really impressed with how creative and different each teams’ asks were and how everyone went about helping our partners. In the end, Edelman raised $75k in cash, donated services and time from an initial donation of $25k. Amazing! I was also given the opportunity to write up a quick blog post summing up the event to be posted on the global digital site. Check it out here for more details!

The Lean Mean & Green Team!

As much as I enjoy trying to make a difference at work everyday, trying also to make sure I instill a good worklife balance. Today I went down to MTV to catch the MTV Live & MTV Aftershow for one of my favourite shows, The City. Would totally recommend anyone who’s a fan of The Hills or The City to attend the Aftershow. It’s free to attend, and all you have to bring is enthusiasm and tons of excitement so you can cheer your heads off. The Hills tapes usually every Tuesday night and you should be there on Wednesday nights if you want to watch The City. They also often have giveaways! Tonight they gave away $100 gift certificate to Beyond the Rack; the last time I went I won the last half of Season 5 of The Hills – last season ever with Lauren Conrad! We received VIP treatment, got seated in the front rows and were SO EXCITED to see Kelly Cutrone appear as a special guest! She was absolutely entertaining and was extremely friendly, answering questions from the audience and taking the time to take photos with all of the guests afterward. Thank you Kelly for making our night!

Jessi & Dan with Kelly!

Us with Kelly!