We are excited about the accomplishments of the last 6 months and for the prospects of the coming year. The 14th edition of QuantumShift concluded on May 12th with another fantastic group of high-growth entrepreneurs. We’ve now worked with 579 leaders who employ over 185,000 people across Canada and around the world.
Due to its success, we have also franchised the QuantumShift brand into the United States where the University of Michigan is now running a version for US-based entrepreneurs. We have also spun off two Ivey Executive Education Programs: a family business program (FamilyShift) and a not for profit program (CommunityShift). Furthermore, we will be introducing a new high-growth program with the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) in September.
We wrapped up our first year of helping build a robust Western Entrepreneurship Ecosystem. Our first cohort has graduated from the Western Accelerator and we are delighted with the results. Thanks to all who volunteered to come down and work with these young entrepreneurs. We will be selecting the fall cohort in June. We also completed our first cohort from the Student Innovation Scholar program, where graduate students worked with Ivey MBAs on how to perform due diligence on new scientific/technological breakthroughs. We taught two new courses to Western Students at large and are continuing to work with like-minded faculty across campus to drive a cultural change with regard to entrepreneurship at Western.
Last but not least, we recently concluded a conference on benefit corporations that included top academics from around the world. Lots of good debate and research paper presentations will lead to a special issue in the Journal of Business Venturing, edited by our own Simon Parker and Oana Branzei. Staying on research, we are off to the Great Lakes Entrepreneurship Network (GLEN) conference, which is a great opportunity to network and work on papers with top faculty and PhD students in the field. Ivey’s Simon Parker and Larry Plummer will be leading the charge this year with two of our doctoral students.