Coast Capital Savings supports entrepreneurship at SFU Surrey
Coast Capital Savings is the first corporate sponsor of Venture Connection, Simon Fraser University’s new interdisciplinary hub for entrepreneurial activity, located at its Surrey campus.
The company’s $125,000 investment will support a number of programs aimed at enhancing the Fraser Valley’s entrepreneurial culture. These include student entrepreneurship and business plan competitions, a series of workshops and seminars and the Incubator program, which gives students the opportunity to develop companies with the assistance of hand-picked experts and mentors.
“We are delighted to contribute to SFU’s entrepreneurship initiative,” says Coast Capital Savings president and CEO, Lloyd Craig. “With today’s current economic environment, it is even more important to inspire and support entrepreneurship throughout Surrey and the Fraser Valley. Our joint efforts in this partnership will ensure that students have access to programs and services to help foster economic development.”
Venture Connection brings academic, research and commercialization experts throughout SFU together with active participation from business leaders in the community to provide support and educational programs for student, faculty and community entrepreneurs who want to create successful start-up ventures.
The goals of the program are to increase the number of spin-off companies started by SFU faculty and students and to accelerate the rate of growth of early stage businesses.
Venture Connection is funded in part by grants from Western Economic Diversification, NRC-IRAP and the B.C. Innovation Council.
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Coast Capital Savings is Canada’s second largest credit union with total assets under administration of $11.9 billion, 380,000 members and 51 branches in the Metro Vancouver, Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island regions of British Columbia.
Product innovations from Coast Capital Savings include Canada’s first free chequing account from a full-service financial institution, the first business account in the country to offer unlimited transactions for a flat fee and the newly introduced High-interest, No-fee Savings Account, another first for the Canadian financial industry.
The credit union was named one of BC’s Top 50 Employers in 2009, is one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies and the recipient of the Canadian Co-operative Association Innovations in Co-operative Governance Award. Coast Capital Savings has also been designated a Caring Company by Imagine Canada. To learn more, visit http://www.coastcapitalsavings.com/.
Erica Branda, SFU Advancement, ebranda@sfu.ca
Terry Lavender, SFU Surrey, terry_lavender@sfu.ca