The Harvest Jazz And Blues For Startups Will Connect Companies From Around N.B.
SAINT JOHN – A new event taking place next month will help connect all of New Brunswick’s startup communities and bring awareness to the provinces startup ecosystem.
From June 5 to 11, Startup NB, a volunteer entrepreneur-led organization that supports the development and success of startup entrepreneurs throughout the province, will host the inaugural Startup Festival Week NB, a week-long celebration of local startup entrepreneurs.
Throughout the week, the 10 Startup Canada Communities across New Brunswick will be hosting different events. The week will wrap up with two event-filled days in Fredericton with the Invest NB investor conference, a province-wide Startup NB Community Pitch-off finals and the Canadian Export Challenge regional pitch competition and workshop. The week will close with the Atlantic Startup Canada Awards on June 11.
Norm Couturier, one of the organizers of the event, said the idea is to draw awareness to the 10 New Brunswick Startup Communities that have been established in the province over the last year.
“This was a way to create awareness that there was a startup ecosystem that spans the province and gets entrepreneurs, startups, the business community, the general public to say, ‘hey look, there’s something going on that’s about startups, I wonder what that is? Maybe we’re interested in being a part of that,'” says Couturier.
“We had been presented the opportunity to host the Atlantic Startup Canada Awards here in Fredericton and also the Canadian Export challenge here in Fredericton. We thought maybe if we put our heads together as startup communities around the province, we could create enough events that were related to startups and stick them together like a festival.”
The official schedule of events hasn’t been released yet, but Couturier describes the format of the festival as like a Harvest Jazz and Blues for startups.
“Instead of having different tents, you would have different communities. In those communities, instead of having bands, you would have startups,” he says. “We’d just do things to celebrate startups, the activity, and the entrepreneurial movement and see what kind of energy we could create.”
Though they expect the three main Startup Communities, Moncton, Fredericton and Saint John to participate, they are also encouraging the smaller centres, like Sussex, Bathurst and St. Stephen to participate too.
“We’re encouraging all 10 startup communities to create events that are valuable in their communities,” says Couturier. “We have no barriers or walls between north and south or east and west or big and small. We’ve basically drawn a line around the entire province and said that’s the ecosystem, so all the communities are encouraged to do things.”
With so many different individuals, organizations and programs that help startups in the province, organizers hope the event will help establish Startup NB as a “connector” of all those moving parts.
“Startup NB is an embedded network organization – not a representer or an umbrella. It’s not designed to overlook or mandate or control or anything. We’ve got little pieces of the ecosystem around the province and we feel our job is to really connect all those and create a brand presence to those who are outside looking in,” says Couturier. “Kind of like the baby Waterloo region. There’s no head office for the Waterloo region, it’s an ecosystem. We’re just trying to be that lighthouse for the ecosystem.”
Though the festival is obviously gear towards startups, Startup NB hopes the event will attract potential mentors, investors and the general public too.
“I don’t know how many folks I talk to in the run of a month where they don’t really know what a startup ecosystem is,” says Couturier. “It’s allowing the general public to see what startups are and why there are communities and why there are places like the Planet Hatches and the Venn Innovations and the ConnextionWorks of the world. To create the opportunity for folks to be exposed who may not necessarily be exposed otherwise.”