Written by Ricky Choi

Imagine the scene as a group of 34 SFU students trek down the streets of Calgary in business suits and.....cowboy hats! This was one of the many poignant images that come to mind when looking back at the 2010 ACE National Exposition that took place from May 10th to 12th.

In the SIFE competition, Simon Fraser University placed as a National Semi-Finalist as 43 teams across Canada competed in determining which SIFE team created the greatest social and economic impact in their communities through the power of business and entrepreneurship. SIFE Simon Fraser's projects were showcased to a judging panel of industry professionals at the Calgary Telus Convention Centre, and the 24 minute presentation covered everything from SIFE's graphic design business MADrenegade, to the environmental sustainability program Banner Bags.

Team coach Sabaina Saif was confident that it was the innovative nature of SIFE Simon Fraser's projects that led to our semifinalist position:

"I've seen people think outside the box over the course of the year. Our Banner bags program was a good example of student innovation and people took notice. But even beyond that, it was the fact that our projects had sustainability that really made it stand out. These projects were designed to be carried forward year after year to create lasting impactful change."

Along with placing in the semifinals, SIFE Simon Fraser was selected as one of 6 teams across Canada to participate in the first annual RBC Blue Water Challenge. The team presented on a pilot program targeting water sustainability in the City of Port Moody.

Accompanied by faculty advisor Sam Thiara, Simon Fraser University was represented by 35 SIFE members, a record number that indicated how far the SIFE team has come in the past three years.

SIFE president Anoop Aulakh emphasized this achievement: 

"Having over thirty members with us just proves how far we've come. Just three years ago we had just six members here to represent SFU. To come to nationals this year with this many members allowed us to not only compete but be able to celebrate everything that was accomplished during the year."

So what's up with SIFE's community development projects?

Well to say the least; there is a lot going on! There are currently 12 different projects in our community development portfolio educating people on a variety of things from market economics to business ethics!

But people always wonder.. why are we educating people on the topics that we do? Let me walk you through how we create a SIFE educational project with a common example.. let's say that you are a university student with no money! Here are the steps I would go through to help you solve your problem:

Firstly, we would have to define the audience and the need, which would be university students who are spending too much money eating at the Surrey Central food court or at cornerstone. How much money is lost by these students each week? If you think about it, $15 on food each day, maybe 4 days per week. That is $60 per week and around $240 per month! You could buy a new textbook for that much!

Next, we would decide on a strategy to educate SFU students and how we can empower them alternative strategies to save money on food. So how can we do this, and at the same time maybe inspire SFU students to eat healthier (Pizza point isn't the healthiest thing to eat everyday). So the strategy that I came up with is a healthy eating program where students track their consumption in calories and dollars spent on food.

Then you need to set some GOALS! If you don't have any goals for your project, you won't get anywhere! Make sure you set your goals high and try to achieve those goals!

Next would be a name for the program, either an acronym or something that aligns with the project's goals and purpose. Since I'm no good at coming up with names for projects, I will call this one "Piggy Bank Lunch".

So what's next? Figure out a way to market the project and empower students to save money and eat healthier! Now the exact details would have to be determined and written down on SIFE documentation! (we will skip that step for now)

After completion of the project, it is utter most important to track results and record your impact! A strategy to follow-up and keep track of how the participants have used the program to change their lives is of equal importance of the project itself! There is no point in creating a project without knowing how your project changed the lives of people.

After you have followed up with the participants, fill out your closing documents and pass the project onto the next Project Manager!

So creating and implementing a SIFE project isn't that much work, as long as you know what your goals are. Because executing any project is possible, yes we are still in university, but we aren't in the real world yet.

So take the time to try out something new, get out there and find your passion!

Our Global Entrepreneurship Week started early on Saturday, November 14th, with the SFU Student Entrepreneur of the Year Awards put together by SIFE Simon Fraser and Venture Connection. With a workshop in the morning, attendees were able to hear from some of Vancouver's successful entrepreneurs about what it takes to make it in the real world. The workshop included presenter Jim Derbyshire along with host Stewart Marshall and the workshop panelists: Brad Palmer, Milun Tesovic, Maryam Mahdaviani, and Mike Tan.

The competition began in the afternoon for the 2009 SFU Student Entrepreneur of the Year and newly added this year, the 2009 SFU Best New Student Entrepreneur. It was very inspiring to hear from new and established student entrepreneurs and how they're working to grow their business. It was a tough competition; I'm glad I wasn't one of the judges! Congratulations to Ammar Sultan, the 2009 Best New Student Entrepreneur of the Year and Benjamin Brown-Bentley, the 2009 SFU Student Entrepreneur of the Year! We're very excited for them.

Then we started the week off with a bang, with the Global Entrepreneurship Week Kickoff!

Led by our Project Manager Officer, Brian Yan Muk, 20+ attendees learned what is defined as a project and went through the beginning processes an entrepreneur would go through to create a new project.  Following Brian's crash course in project management, the attendees were split into three groups to come up with solutions for water efficiency, hunger and business ethics. Members that already knew of SIFE's existing projects around these issues came up with previously unconsidered suggestions. Each group was given feedback by other members and ideas were further developed by all. 

At Innovasion, Brian got to sit in to listen to Brad Worthley give a talk about exceptional customer service. He talked about things like telling customers “it's my pleasure” rather than “no problem” when they say thank you, knowing how to use your voice inflexion to sound better, and how your appearance/what you sound like/what actions you do send out more information to the customer than that you're actually saying.

Met up with Impact and met with Alex Shipillo, Paul Hillsdon, and Andrew King and talked about the Leaders of Tomorrow Program, ACE Canada/SIFE, and how awesome I thought Paul Hillsdon is because of the cool things he's done.

We then proceeded to get around in a circle for the “networking event”. The circle consisted of:

- Vancouver Student Entrepreneur Association (VSEA) from UBC
- SIFE BCIT
- Langara Business Association
- BC Innovation Council (BCIC)
- SIFE Simon Fraser
- Impact Canada

We talked a little about ourselves and what events were going on. VSEA is running a bright ideas competition and an entrepreneurship conference. BCIT talked about their Spring Living Fair and other stuff. Langara was a relatively young association so they had lots of plans and initiatives. BCIC talked about funding new technology and products from concept to commercialization. I talked about SEY, Venture Meet Up, College Pro Presentation, and BS Competition. Impact talked about how they wanted to spread entrepreneurship to more and more students.

After the event. VSEA made a video blog of how the event went while they were cleaning up. They took a video with a digital camera and also streamed the same footage online using Qik on Jon's iPhone. I think that would be a great idea for our team sustainability and feedback footage on an event, instead of relying on meetings with old PM's and documentation. They were really passionate and excited about what they accomplished that day and I was inspired by what they did. They did something similar to SET where they got students to pitch a candy bar for one minute.

Overall, a really good and inspiring event for the last 3 hours I attended. I was surrounded by people who shared the same vales and goals with the same passion and energy as we have. I'm uncertain how many people came during the day but it was poorly attended towards the end when some really good stuff happened. Hope to see more people out next year. Perhaps SIFE Simon Fraser should have a booth there too.

Guest speaker Joe Timlin, Vice President of Investment Information Technology at GrowthWorks joined us for the final Venture Meet-Up of the semester early Thursday evening. He spoke on his experience with BDC's Venture Capital, where he was able to work with many start-ups. Joe shared with us challenges and pitfalls that he saw during his time with Venture Meet-Up. Joe's casual presentation flew by quickly; with time to spare, Joe took the intimate gather up to the Highland Pub. As he bought rounds of beer for the small group, Joe went through and asked each individual about their personal experience and goals and provided some industry insight to help them.  

Tony Valle, College Pro CEO and Rodney Larmand, College Pro President flew into Vancouver at 5:30pm on Thursday and raced up to SFU Burnaby to join SIFErs, members of SFU's Career Management Center and our very own Undergraduate Associate Dean, Colleen Collins. Over an intimate dinner at the Highland Pub, SIFErs got a rare chance to speak with Tony, Rodney and other College Pro reps. Conversation ranged from possible collaboration between SIFE, SFU Business and College Pro to how to use Twitter as an organization to the upcoming Olympics! Brian even managed to give Tony an overview of Google Wave and its various functions.

Social Entrepreneurship Experience was attended mainly by UBC students (because it was hosted by Enterprize Canada at UBC), there were many like minded students who have a passion to do some good for society and make a buck while they're at it. There were many inspirational speakers that had many awesome stories that related to their experiences and how they apply to us. There was an social innovation challenge where they gave us an hour to come up with a business plan to solve an issue we were interested in the world. I felt the whole event was super rushed and packed and it was difficult to keep up but overall, a valuable experience to meet people and hear about the opportunities there are in the world to make money and solve problems.

At the end of the week, miles away in Kansis City, Missouri, we're excited to say SFU's own Milun Tesovic, and our 2008 SFU Student Entrepreneur of the Year, won the 2009 Global Student Entrepreneur Award! Congratulations Milun!

Overall, GEW at SFU was a huge success! Thanks to all the speakers and participants! We look forward to bringing an even bigger and better event next year. Feel free to email SIFE Simon Fraser for feedback or suggestions on what to do next year.