I think we need to go back to the recommendation that was made. Futurpreneur Canada doesn't just provide funding. It also offers mentoring and training. You can't just provide funding. Even I was a business lawyer, and when I made the transition to entrepreneur, I saw that it wasn't the same thing. You need mentoring, a community and a lot of support.
That said, funding is one of the necessary elements. At the University of Ottawa, we would like to get $20,000 per participant, as well as $5,000 to reinvest. Participants would receive this as a micro grant upon completing the program. It would help them enormously. It would provide a solid start. It could also serve as a prerequisite for the organization—whether it's the Business Development Bank of Canada, or BDC, Futurpreneur Canada, or the Veteran Business Network Institute, or VBNI, which I mentioned—that will be responsible for managing the federal government's funding or loan program for veteran-owned businesses. This ecosystem would work well.
We'd like to start as soon as possible with a cohort of 20 participants, and then ramp things up. We'd like to start this fall, but I don't think it will happen that quickly. Given the bureaucracy, we have to be realistic, but I think we could start as early as next year. There could subsequently be hundreds of participants who would receive online training and group mentoring. They would then receive their funding.