Glendon adds a new entrepreneurship passport to the GENIAL Program

Glendon has launched a new Entrepreneurial Skills Passport – Passeport Compétences Entrepreneuriales, part of a recently introduced bilingual extracurricular program in entrepreneurship offered through the Glendon ENtrepreneurship et Innovation A l’International (GENIAL).

The Entrepreneurial Skills Passport provides students with an opportunity to take part in a limited series of workshops focused on developing core entrepreneurial skills. Designed as a training program, the passport is composed of three workshops and three presentations. Students can earn a maximum of six badges for their passport, three badges for participating in the workshops and three badges for delivering the presentations. The passport runs for one semester and is offered free of charge to all Glendon students. Registration is now being accepted for the fall cohort, to learn more and to register, visit http://www.glendon.yorku.ca/genial/en/ (English), or http://www.glendon.yorku.ca/genial/ (French).

Angelo Dossou-Yovo

The passport is a core component of the GENIAL extracurricular program that is offered to Glendon students interested in starting a business. The passport and GENIAL were initiated by Professor Angelo Dossou-Yovo, an assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship in Glendon’s new International Bachelor of Art and Bachelor of Business Administration dual degree program in the Department of International Studies.

GENIAL assists student entrepreneurs with developing, testing and bringing their ideas to market. Students participating in GENIAL develop hands-on competencies and entrepreneurial skills that they can leverage to resolutely take charge of their future professional career. In addition to the passport, GENIAL offers students skills in developing a business plan and model and an incubation program for student entrepreneurs to launch their businesses. It is augmented by an entrepreneurship and innovation research group comprised of faculty members working with student research assistants.

“GENIAL enriches York University’s entrepreneurial ecosystem with options in French, in keeping with Glendon’s mission. Glendon students and the Francophone and Francophile community will now have the means to rely on their creativity in order to innovate and start a business, especially with the help of the Entrepreneurial Skills Passport,” said Glendon Principal Donald Ipperciel.

The program is designed to offer students an experiential learning opportunity. GENIAL’s main goal is to contribute, in collaboration with Innovation York and launchYU, to the development and promotion of entrepreneurship and innovation by offering tailor-made bilingual programming to Glendon students, Faculties, and Ontario’s Francophones as well as Francophiles.

“GENIAL is an excellent initiative that exemplifies some of the exciting experiential education projects that are being developed at Glendon. In addition to acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary for future entrepreneurs, students will get the opportunity to put them in practice through various hands-on activities. The Entrepreneurial Skills Passport is only the first step of a very innovative project developed by Professor Angelo Dossou-Yovo to promote entrepreneurship on campus,” said Michael Ah Choon, coordinator of experiential education at Glendon.

To learn more, visit http://www.glendon.yorku.ca/genial/.