Cultivating Entrepreneurship: Improving Accelerator & Incubator Learning
The Canadian economy depends on small and medium sized enterprises, which employ nearly 85% of its workforce, and contribute more than $1 trillion to its gross domestic product. Yet, 20% of start-ups fail within the first year, and 60% within the first three years – statistics which Business Accelerators and Incubators (BAIs) strive to improve.*
Business Accelerators and Incubators based in communities and campuses are created to stimulate entrepreneurship, to help overcome initial difficulties, and accelerate growth in the marketplace, playing a key role in the start and scale journey of many Canadian start-ups.
The average Canadian university has 3.3 campus-linked accelerators or incubators serving different audiences with varying levels of support and service. From assisting with access to funding, developing appropriate partnerships and business skills, to start-up process consultation, access to networks, facilities, mentorship and coaching – managing these services and supports can be an incredibly tall order for those who are leading Business Incubator and Accelerator (BAI) services for budding entrepreneurs.
This niche professional learning fellowship provides education and municipal leaders, or teams accountable for improving BAI education experiences and outcomes, with an opportunity to develop education leadership capabilities, and explore strategies for planning, designing, and developing their accelerator/incubator education strategy, including considerations for professional learning, community-partnership engagement, and performance measurement.
*Sources:
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3310027001
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/45-28-0001/2021001/article/00034-eng.htm
https://fundsquire.ca/startup-statistics-canada
https://www.cbinsights.com/research/startup-failure-reasons-top/

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What You'll Achieve
The OISE Continuing & Professional Learning Fellowship experience commits to an adult learning structure that is flexible and that enables a facilitated inquiry-oriented environment. Our Professional Learning Fellowships are oriented towards creating professional agency and building the capacity of education leaders.
In this program, you’ll assess your business accelerator/incubator’s functional, structural, technical, and team readiness to improve services that best support all stakeholder needs.
You’ll be guided to think critically as you explore and develop your unique accelerator/incubator implementation plan, recommendation, or other project to advance your organization’s workplace learning goals and objectives. This program is contextualized to your identified workplace observations and needs.
To achieve your learning goals with this program, our Professional Learning Fellowship facilitation team incorporates a process facilitation model that will guide your learning into two core phases:
(1) Discovery and Definition where you will dive into developing local, national and global insights to inform your concept and/or plan;
(2) Development & Implementation where you will consider your operating context and theories of implementation science to test your recommendations and ensure your bold idea can be applied within your organization.
Upon completion of the program, you will have:
- Developed an evidence-informed workplace practice, improvement and/or opportunity proposal to share and implement with your workplace and community stakeholders.
- Established a repertoire of tools, models, and research literature to facilitate critical thinking and effective action planning; these are resources that you can pay forward when leading your teams and peers
- Gained a professional peer and expert network introduction that you can commit to cultivating in months and years to come for your continued professional and leadership growth
- Achieved a Master Certificate of Completion from OISE Continuing & Professional Learning, Canada’s #1 Faculty of Education and top 3 in the world education research institution
Program Overview
Program Length
14 weeks
Format
Online - Synchronous & Asynchronous Elements
Class Size
Under 20 Fellows
Course Duration
14 weeks
Effort
Active Engagement
7-9 hours per week
(125 hours total)
Total Investment
$3,985 (HST exempt)
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Enhance your leadership capacity with educator skills, and improve the entrepreneur learning experience in your accelerator/incubator.
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