Lakehead provides a boost to student-based businesses
The latest group of graduates from the Ascend Accelerator program were honoured on Friday.
Published on tbnewswatch.com
Lucas Punkari
THUNDER BAY – A business program might not be the first place where you run into a mechanical engineering student.
However, the lessons that Sed Elmi has learned through Lakehead University’s Ingenuity Ascend Accelerator program will be vital as he moves forward in his career.
“Engineering doesn’t make sense without business,” Elmi said.
“You have to have business and engineering skills to make anything in the world and this has been helping me to build a better business sense.”
Elmi was part of the fifth cohort of graduates from the program, who were honoured during a ceremony on Friday for their work over the last 10 weeks.
Elmi’s business is KØRDS, which focuses on accessories for hoodie strings that often fall off and get lost.
“Everyone hates losing those strings and I think a lot of people are getting away from them, so I’m just trying to help make them look cool,” Elmi said.
“This program has helped with the funding to start this project, as there’s a lot of manufacturing and prototyping to start off with. It’s been helping me kind of just speed through all the minor issues when it comes to thinking about what to do when it comes to marketing and how to go about certain things.”
For the indie game development studio Project Aether, the Ascent program has helped them learn things that they wouldn’t have known about otherwise.
“None of us are in a business program so all of the skills we’ve gained are new to us and are very valuable,” said Tim Shaw, who is joined on the team by Lilith Moon, James McDonagh, Josiah Ledua and Gia Hieu Le.
“There’s a lot of expenses that we didn’t really realize that we needed to plan for and we spoke to a lawyer a few weeks ago, which was really insightful for learning about the legal side of things.”
Alyson MacKay, who is the manager for Ingenuity, said that the passion and the drive of the participants is unwavering.
“They come out of school and they do the work for 10 weeks, which is a lot of time and commitment, not just for the in-person lessons but for the work they do on their own,” MacKay said.
“It’s a very short period of time to start a business, but we hope to kind of get them further in the process.”
Vanessa Franklin, who is the owner and lead consultant for Lighthouse Human Resources Consulting, said that the program has helped in the realization of a 10-year dream.
“To have this come to fruition in 10 weeks is pretty crazy,” Franklin said.
“It (Ascend) gave me the mentorship and guidance that I needed and it answered so many questions that I had about finances and taxation. This is an excellent opportunity and the funding that’s provided has helped me be able to launch this business today.”
The other graduate who was honoured on Friday was Lauren Reid, who is on Lakehead’s Orilla campus.
Reid’s business is Worn on Weekends, which designs the feelings that people have about heading out to the cottage on stickers and keychains.
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