The Institute of Entrepreneurship and Community Innovation (IECI) is a living lab where George Brown College business students, with oversight from their professors and industry experts gain real world experience. Students are empowered through field education opportunities by the utilization of partnerships and learning innovation, to help communities achieve social and economic success. We help young entrepreneurs start small businesses through the Creating Entrepreneurial Opportunities (CEO) Program and provide consulting services to local not-for-profit organizations and small-to-medium-sized businesses through IGNITE consulting services.
Students’ Benefits
- Opportunity to get paid and/or receive academic credit by working on real life projects
- Resume and portfolio building
- Expanded professional and peer network
- Experience a high performing and team-oriented culture
- Increased self-confidence, and enhanced soft and hard skills
Clients’ Benefits
- Low-cost access to significant physical and intellectual resources
- Application of entrepreneurial concepts and principles to increase capacity, productivity and sustainability
- Idea generation of alternate revenue streams
- Facilitation of strategic alliances
- Practical solutions, recommendations and hands-on assistance
Our Values
Excellence:
We are committed to delivering George Brown College’s standard of high quality and superior performance.
Students’ Personal and Professional Growth:
We ensure that students’ personal and professional aspirations meet our organizational goals by fostering a positive learning environment.
Diversity and Respect:
We show mutual respect to each other and stakeholders through our behaviour.
Teamwork:
We operate and We empower students through field education opportunities utilizing partnerships and learning innovation, to help communities achieve social and economic success.
“The bottom line is that our team at OneSmartWorld is now using the Go-to-Market Guide to implement the strategy and tactics they developed for our social networking, SEO, marketing, messaging and for our partnership network distribution protocols in Canada and US.”
Bob Wiele
President and Founder, OneSmartWorld
“George Brown’s staff from IECI have been a tremendous help to me with the CYBF application and my business plan. We truly believe that because of their program our company had the chance to grow and become successful.”
Simona Voinic
Founder and Owner, Firefly Kids Lighting
Quotes from student consultants about their experience:
“You learn so much more by doing things as opposed to reading or hearing about them. It’s a great challenge and it inspired me to start my own consulting practice.”
Jeffrey Ribeiro
“Dealing with the realities of business gives you a tremendous sense of accomplishment, confidence and pride.”
Veronika Kvon
“Now, I feel confident in my ability to perform in a professional work environment.”
Nikky Riley
Our Partners
