BizCamp experiences worldwide growth
How wooden cars lead to tomorrow’s businessmen
Aaron Levere Staff
The annual summer “BizCamp” at the University of Manitoba is taking the country by storm! Last week the University of Manitoba hosted visitors from the school of business at Carleton University in Ottawa who are interested in starting an entrepreneurial summer camp similar to the one that has been operating at the U of M every summer since 1998. There are already BizCamps running in Toronto and Calgary — and in addition to Carleton in Ottawa, universities in Kitchner-Waterloo and Jerusalem have recently expressed interest in starting similar programs as well.
Over 600 Winnipeg youth have graduated from the summer program since its inception, and plans for the 2006 BizCamp in Entrepreneurship are underway.
The camp is run by the Asper School of Business, and so far, the faculty of management has raised $22,500 through their annual Stock Car Challenge, held in November.
The Stock Car Challenge is part of the New Venture Analysis class, a practical training class on running a business. Students are divided into teams of three, then required to build a small pine car that will race against the other teams’ tiny wooden speed-machines. Each team finds corporate sponsors, who get their logo on the car or the track in exchange for their donation. The winning team this year raised $13,850 in donations.
A portion of the funds raised at this year’s Stock Car Challenge will go toward running the BizCamp, while the rest will go toward helping to rebuild Tulane University in New Orleans, which is recovering from the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina.
This is not your average camp. Like other camps, the enrollment is mainly made up of youth aged 13 - 20 who are otherwise limited in their opportunities. The BizCamp website refers to their clientele as those who “have an interest in entrepreneurship but often lack the resources and role models necessary to pursue this interest,” primarily youth who “come from a variety of backgrounds, including living in the inner city of Winnipeg and recent immigrants.”
But instead of canoeing and archery, the camp focuses on practical skills, like reading comprehension and math, by teaching kids the basics of being an entrepreneur. Instead of a handmade lopsided basket, campers go home with a calculator, a dayplanner and a stopwatch. Instead of bug bites, there are bad quiz marks to worry about. Instead of trips to the tuck shop, they go to Costco (apparently the most popular of the BizCamp fieldtrips).
Basically, BizCamp is like summer business school, which may not be as fun, but has much more practical value for kids who wish to become business owners. And we all know that kids love practical value!
Classes range from the basics of reading and understanding a newspaper article to creating a business plan. Campers “study stock tables and learn to calculate return on investment (ROI),” according to the website. They also practice what they learn by picking a stock to watch, creating a business plan (with the chance to win cash prizes for the best plan), and “negotiating deals.”
Guest speakers include successful entrepreneurs, lawyers, accountants, representatives of Manitoba Consumer and Corporate Affairs and the city of Winnipeg’s licensing branch, so that the information campers are getting is current and comes directly from the source.
In addition to cash prizes for various contests during the camp, each year, the camp participant who shows the most business savvy is awarded a $2,000 scholarship to the University of Manitoba to begin pursuing the creation of their dream business.
The BizCamp at Carleton is expected to be up and running this summer, as well; after hearing from organizers at the U of M and a former BizCamp scholarship winner, they are ready to put on the camp that puts the “school” back in “summer school.”
