I love that question.
As it pertains to networking, that is really our bread and butter at Startup Canada. It's providing access for these early-stage founders to the network of support that exists.
I think of programming that we do like our Startup Canada tour. We travel to a number of different destinations all across the country, from Whitehorse to Halifax, from Calgary to Brampton and to all of these different spaces. We create a physical environment where the support ecosystem partners and the private sector come to engage, as do early-stage founders and the governments. We engage all of the stakeholders involved in entrepreneurship.
If I have an emerging business and a great idea, then I can enter into this space and can find an incubation program. I can potentially find an angel investor if that's the right path for me. I can find the right government partner, once I'm ready for procurement.
We are trying to decrease the tension points in that access, because if you're a small business Googling “how to start my company”, you're going to get a whole bunch of different resources. Our tour is a way of really bringing that to life.
On the mentorship piece in particular, five years ago when I began at Startup Canada, there were a tremendous number of mentorship programs. That was where a tremendous amount of funding was going toward building more and more mentorship.
How do we actually focus on the mentorship programs that most meaningfully support women founders? I think of The Forum. It received WES funding, and it has an excellent mentorship program. Now, instead of building our own, we point to that and ask that it leverages this fantastic session and initiative for them, and then it gets better stats.