British Columbia Innovation Council

BCIC has developed this incubator program at UVic to provide engineering and business graduates with mentorship from the business community and an opportunity to start their companies with financial support from the programs' seed fund. Students will benefit from the mentoring, investment guidance, access to resources to do market research and validation, legal / IP protection, business plan development, prototyping and testing and access to angels and VCs that the program provides.

This exciting program, part of a series of Entrepreneurship@ programs created by BCIC, offers engineering and business students the opportunity to partner and learn together towards the end goal of creating their own startup companies. In partnership with premier investment group Wesley Clover and the Alacrity Foundation, the four students enrolled in the pilot program (launched in 2009) will leave with Master's degrees and entrepreneurship graduate diplomas and arguably more important, form companies with mentorship, guidance and seed investment from Wesley Clover.

BCIC looks forward to following the development of four brand new startup companies born out of the program's first year.

Wesley Clover Chairman Sir Terence Matthews; Iain Black, Minister of Small Business, Technology and Economic Development; Ida Chong, Minister of Healthy Living and Sport and MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head; Lynne Yelich, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification; Dean Rockwell, CEO, BCIC; UVic Engineering student Logan Volkers; UVic Engineering student Will Fraser; Engineering professor Dr. Thomas (Ted) Darcie; UVic Engineering student Torben Werner; and UVic Engineering student Jeff Crowe.