Above:  Gursher Sidhu, fourth-year Mechatronic Systems Engineering student

Simon Fraser University student Gursher Sidhu has been named to the 2015 cohort of The Next 36, a national initiative aimed at transforming Canada’s most promising post-secondary students into leading entrepreneurs.

He is one of 38 students who earned a spot on The Next 36 at the annual National Selection Weekend held in Toronto earlier this month. A total of 80 finalists from a pool of 630 applicants attended the weekend of interviews, workshops, speakers and idea generation.

“The Next 36 will challenge me to adapt to a rapidly moving environment as well as learn and apply a large amount of knowledge in a very short amount of time,” says Sidhu, a fourth-year student in Mechatronic Systems Engineering (MSE). “I will be pushed outside my comfort zone and coming out I will be very prepared to handle the obstacles of building and growing a company.”

Over the next seven months, program interns from across the country will build their companies with the support of mentors, a unique academic program and a pool of business advisors.  

First working remotely while completing their academic year, they will converge in Toronto again in May to work on their ventures full-time. The Next 36 culminates in mid-August with the Venture Day showcase.

Sidhu will be working with two engineering teammates who are from UBC, Sagar Malhi and Michael Ip, to develop a start-up focussing on the global market.

Sidhu has been pursuing his entrepreneurial endeavours with tech e@sfu. The program brings together third- and fourth-year MSE and entrepreneurship students to develop a market-inspired technological product and then pitch for the funds to take it from bench-top to market.

The Next 36, Canada’s leading undergraduate entrepreneurship development program, sets out to address Canada’s deficit of high impact entrepreneurship by offering resource-rich education programs to promising young entrepreneurs. The program provides its entrepreneurs with mentorship from some of Canada’s top business leaders, access to funding from venture capitalists, and academic instruction from some of the world’s leading business experts. SFU became an official academic partner of The Next 36 in 2014, solidifying SFU’s reputation as a Canadian leader in fostering entrepreneurship and innovation.

As Canada's engaged university, SFU is defined by its dynamic integration of innovative education, cutting-edge research and far-reaching community engagement.  SFU was founded almost 50 years ago with a mission to be a different kind of university—to bring an interdisciplinary approach to learning, embrace bold initiatives, and engage with communities near and far. Today, SFU is a leader amongst Canada's comprehensive research universities and is ranked one of the top universities in the world under 50 years of age. With campuses in British Columbia's three largest cities—Vancouver, Surrey and Burnaby—SFU has eight faculties, delivers almost 150 programs to over 30,000 students, and boasts more than 130,000 alumni in 130 countries around the world.

Story source/ SFU University Communications