Growing entrepreneurship key to success for Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection director

An innovative and entrepreneurial mindset are central to leadership at SFU, and nowhere is that more exemplified than recent Staff Achievement Award for Innovation winner, Janice OBriain.

The Chang Institute for Entrepreneurship’s Director of Programs, OBriain says innovation at SFU has changed phenomenally in her time at the university. While SFU has always been rich in innovative research, when she started with Venture Connection (now Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection) at its launch in 2008 there were few entrepreneurship resources and programs at SFU, with only a single entrepreneurship concentration for undergraduates in the Beedie School of Business.

Fast forward a decade and innovation is now woven throughout the university, and entrepreneurship is thriving thanks to Venture Connection and the more recently-launched Chang Institute, which provides interdisciplinary entrepreneurship education for undergraduates in all faculties (through programs like the Charles Chang Certificate, Technology Entrepreneurship @SFU and Make Change Studio), as well as for graduate students (i2I Invention to Innovation).

Alongside university-wide strategies like SFU Innovates, SFU helps students and researchers mobilize their ideas for positive social and economic impact.

For start-up support, Venture Connection has been joined over the years by later-stage accelerator VentureLabs and RADIUS, a social innovation hub, creating a strong continuum approach – supported by partners at the Technology Licensing Office and core facilities like 4D Labs.