Venn Wins Innovation Award At TECNA Conference
MONCTON — The incubator program at Venn Innovation has won the Innovative Member and Client Services award at this year’s Technology Councils of North America (TECNA) summer conference, which took place virtually on July 21.
The award recognizes “innovation, leadership, tech expertise and community involvement” shown by Alicia Grayeb and Norbert Demps, who have shaped the Venn Garage program, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Grayeb, Venn Innovation’s program manager for startup services, said she felt grateful to receive the honour with Demps, Venn’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence.
“I feel gratitude [for] the garage’s community and everyone in Atlantic Canada for welcoming us and allowing us to put our ideas forward,” said Grayeb. “Listening to us and providing a space where we could help entrepreneurs.”
Demps said he and Grayeb had had a lot of freedom to make changes to the Venn Garage that they saw could help both the program and new entrepreneurs grow. That freedom is something he says is essential to have in order for startups to succeed.
“All we’re doing is about the startup ecosystem; getting startups out there to help them to succeed,” said Demps. “That’s our mission: we want to get people to come with these ideas and be successful.”
Since Venn Garage launched in 2014, it has helped more than 100 startups across New Brunswick. It has resulted in an increase in new jobs locally and an investment of more than $5 million in new ideas.
Grayeb said the passion for teaching those starting in entrepreneurship comes from seeing problems within the community and finding solutions, a philosophy Venn uses to help startups when they’re coming up with business ideas. After moving to the province from Mexico almost three years ago, she said it’s about giving back to a community that has given her so much.
“It’s nice seeing the startups being committed and doing it not just because it’s something they’re passionate about, but also because they want to help the community,” said Grayeb.
Additionally, as an immigrant from Germany, which prides itself on being an engineering country, Demps sees New Brunswick as a hidden gem. He said local businesses, especially in the technology sector, have the same chances to succeed here as they would internationally.
“There are so many good things coming out, so many amazing startups and technologies,” said Demps. “New Brunswick couldn’t be more proud of what they can actually do on the technology side.”
The recognition from the TECNA conference shows that startups recognize the help programs like Venn Garage can provide, Demps said. In addition, it gives Venn a chance to showcase some of the innovations it has created to help startups succeed during the pandemic and beyond, one of which is a private cloud-based storage service.
Similar to GSuite and Office 365, startups with Venn can use it to safely store documents and other files to a Moncton-hosted server. It also has its own version of Zoom for secure communications. It was created to help Venn’s startups when the pandemic first hit in March 2020, Grayeb said.
“All of a sudden, they have no income and no way of generating any income either,” said Grayeb. “So, it was [to help] them find ways to keep on supporting themselves and their families.”
The pair look forward to continuing work with entrepreneurs who have a passion for identifying problems within their communities and fixing them, as well as those who wish to better the region — both economically and environmentally.
“That’s what being a startup is all about,” said Demps. “What do you have to do? You have to find yourself a market. It’s not just having a good idea, someone needs to buy it. Otherwise, it ends up to be a hobby.”
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Aaron Sousa is a summer intern for Huddle. Send him story suggestions: [email protected].