Flowboat

These students realized there was an urgent and profound need for a practical entrepreneurship club for youth.

"Our group’s creative idea is centred around Flowboat, a youth-led and Waterloo-based startup incubator program for high school students. By providing other high school students from around Waterloo Region with lessons, guest speakers, industry mentors, and monetary grants, we aim to give students the opportunity to launch a successful startup while gaining important entrepreneurial experience. Through weekly meetings and a pitching competition at the end of the year, our goal is to provide between 50 and 100 students with experience and knowledge that will greatly benefit them going into the future.

As Waterloo is the central hub of technology and development in Canada, many young adults from around Waterloo Region have innovative ideas that could be expanded into successful entrepreneurial ventures. However, becoming an entrepreneur is a difficult process, especially for young adults stepping foot into their industries for the first time. It is often a struggle for aspiring young entrepreneurs to find the resources they need to build a successful business from the ground up. Therefore, the Flowboat project seeks to provide high school students with the foundation upon which they can successfully launch their ideas into the world as startups by providing them lessons in the elements of running a business (such as marketing, pitching, and production) as well as other key resources such as starting grants and mentors with real industry experience."

With their micro-grant from the Youth Creativity Fund, Flowboat was able to grow their program and support more youth-led initiatives. We've actually seen a few other Youth Creativity Fund project come out of Flowboat with their entrepreneurial ideas!