On Jan. 26, Startup Laurier hosted an event in Kitchener called Entrepreneurs Exchange. Tickets were sold on campus and online for $20, which included transportation, networking games, activities, workshops and guest speakers.
Startup Laurier is a club part of the Lazsoc Student Association who puts on events with a startup and entrepreneurial themed premise.
One of the keynote speakers of the event was Shadrach “Shad” Kabango, a Wilfrid Laurier University alumni and hip hop artist who has created an influential entrepreneurial endeavour through music.
“Our aim is to connect students with the entrepreneurship community on the Kitchener Waterloo Region so we run a variety of events, programs and competitions,” Saheba Segu, co-president for Startup Laurier, said.
Segu also explained that Startup Laurier wants to develop more genuine conversations surrounding entrepreneurial culture. Startup Laurier has been running the Entrepreneurs Exchange event for five years now and it has been recognized as Laurier’s flagship event of the year and overall club of the year.
The event took over four months to plan and came with a positive reputation from Laurier students.
“To be honest, the event was absolutely amazing,” Segu said.
“The team and I have been working so, so hard for the last four months to make this event come to life and it went according to plan. Everyone that attended was able to gain a lot of valuable insight into the entrepreneurial community. They got to hear Shad speak, which was amazing.”
Startup Laurier continues their legacy of creating innovative enjoyable events by always wanting to improve upon previous years.
“Coming into this year and approaching and creating new events had us kind of thinking ‘Why were last years events so successful?’ and ‘How do we maintain that standard? How do we go above and beyond what people are expecting?’’’ Segu said.
The goal of the event was to expose and explore different areas of entrepreneurship, such as small business ventures to other more large scale entrepreneurship. Startup Laurier hopes to inform students that they don’t need to be the next Mark Zuckerberg to be an entrepreneur; there are different kinds and avenues of startups and businesses.
“We had everything from Communitech as well as local small business owners and we also had people that support small business initiatives,” Segu said.
While Entrepreneurs Exchange is a different kind of event that students wouldn’t normally see from a university club, Startup Laurier hopes to focus more on bringing the best kinds of resources to students on Laurier campus.
“Startup Laurier has just been working so hard to provide students with any possible route to be engaged with the community at large and we really hope that people gain valuable insights through the initiatives that we support and to get outside of your comfort zone,” Segu said.