WINNIPEG, MB – University of Winnipeg business student Ethan Baron spent this past weekend in Toronto competing for a coveted spot in The Next 36, an elite program that selects and supports the next generation of high-impact entrepreneurs with $50,000 in start-up cash plus high-level CEO mentoring. Baron is the only Manitoban to make the cut from over 1,000 leading Canadian undergraduate students from 62 schools across North America.
Baron was selected following an intense weekend of exercises that included presenting a business pitch to investors with only a few hours to prepare.
“This is an incredible opportunity,” said Baron, who at 19 years old is already in his fourth year of a double major at UWinnipeg, studying international business and economics and finance. “For the next nine months I am in a team of four people tasked with developing a mobile venture. We have $50,000 in cash and two high-level CEOs to advise us. We return to Toronto in May for an entrepreneurial boot camp and to raise additional capital for our startup company.”
Baron’s team consists of two engineering students in Toronto and another business student in Saskatoon who will work together via teleconference. Baron says the team is encouraged to tackle “big picture problems” such as developing a system to stimulate the mind of Alzheimer’s patients.
“I feel as though I am receiving the equivalent of an MBA education, with access to a high level network of people and expertise that would normally take years to develop,” said Baron. “Our team is very committed to working hard and making sacrifices for this project.”
Baron credits his time at The University of Winnipeg with helping him achieve this milestone. “In our business faculty we interact with our professors in a way that is unmatched, I have learned as much outside the classroom as inside it. And our classes are small, sometimes just 15 students, compared to hundreds elsewhere. That is the biggest advantage.”
“Canada’s top students apparently have a huge appetite for challenge and discomfort,” says Claudia Hepburn, executive director and co-founder of The Next 36. “They are hungry for mentorship from great entrepreneurs and ambitious in their goals for innovation and impact. This intensely challenging weekend has laid the foundation for nine months of transformative growth.”
Championed by Founding Patrons Galen Weston, Paul Desmarais Sr., Jimmy Pattison and a long list of prominent Canadian business leaders, The Next 36 is a year-old educational organization whose goal is to increase Canadian prosperity by developing Canada’s next generation of high impact entrepreneurs.
The thirty-six selected students have returned to their home universities and have already begun working remotely on their new businesses with their co-founders and CEO-level mentors. All candidates will return to Toronto in May for the Entrepreneurship Institute, an innovation boot camp, where they will build their venture with guidance from the world’s top faculty and support from Canada’s top business leaders and entrepreneurs. For more information, please visit: www.thenext36.ca
MEDIA CONTACT
Diane Poulin, Communications Officer, The University of Winnipeg
P: 204.988.7135, E: d.poulin@uwinnipeg.ca
