At Impact, our main goal is to spread social entrepreneurship initiatives to youth across Canada. We have some really exciting events, programs and contests set to launch over the next few months, so be sure to keep following what we’re up to!

As entrepreneurs, we’re always focused on ROI and “Risk vs. Reward”, so how about we offer a no risk, high reward for helping us reach 2,000 Facebook Fans by July 31, 2010? We would like to invite one of our loyal fans to join us at our 7th annual Impact National Conference, taking place on November 12- 13th, 2010 in Downtown Toronto (over a $700 value!).

Held in November, the annual Impact National Conference brings together 500 of Canada’s top young leaders from high schools, universities and colleges. These future leaders participate in a two day long experience filled with workshops, breakout sessions, keynote speakers, a banquet and an awards ceremony. Past speakers at the conference include Harry Rosen (Founder of Harry Rosen Inc.), Frank O’Dea (Founder of Second Cup), Marc and Craig Kielburger (Founders of Free the Children) and many more!

Here’s what you do:

1) Get on Facebook

2) Become a fan at www.Facebook.com/ImpactFanPage

3) Share our page and invite your friends to sign up too!

So how do I win the FREE Impact National Conference ticket?

If we hit 2,000 fans before July 31, 2010 we’ll randomly select a winner!

Help the Impact Entrepreneurship Group SPREAD SOCIAL entrepreneurship across Canada and reward yourself with great ROI!

Brought to you by:

Impact Marketing | Spread Social

www.Impact.org

As many of you know from an earlier post, our team is working hard in the second round of selections for the Impact Apprentice Competition that takes place in August.

However, we would like your help in choosing the competitors!  Each candidate has submitted a 1-2 minute video on a topic that we have assigned them, and we would like you to vote for your favorites.  The videos have been posted here.  Don’t forget to check back often as more videos will be submitted as the deadline of July 11th approaches!  After you have voted, be sure to spread the word and encourage your friends to vote!

How to Vote:

1. Go to www.impactapprentice.ca
2. Use the options in the top left corner to “Login with Facebook” or create your own account using your email with the “Register” option and login through that.
3. Select the videos of your choosing and click on the “Vote for this Entry” button below the video.

You can vote for as many videos as you like, so feel free to choose more than one! You can vote for each video once per day until July 11, 2010 at midnight.

For the past few months, Impact has been working along side the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) to organize Ontario’s Next Top Entrepreneur Pitch Competition. From a large applicant pool consisting of undergraduate and graduate students representing 14 different post-secondary instituitions, five finalists were chosen to present their business ideas at the Discovery 10 Conference.

Last week, these top five teams delivered their pitches to a panel of judges for a chance to be enrolled in OCE’s Centre for Commercialization of Research’s New Entrepreneur Program. The winning team was granted a non-recourse micro-loan of up to $18,000 ($6,000 per team member), access to advisory services, and given the opportunity to network with key mentors and private investors.

The competition was a great success! Congratulations to Avenir Medical for winning the title of Ontario’s Next Top Entrepreneur! The winning teams were as follows.

First Prize Winner: AVENIR MEDICAL

Armen Bakirtzian, Andre Hladio, Richard Fanson, Ara Hasserjian

The heart of Avenir Medical Inc. is PelvAssist (trademarked), an intra-operative guidance tool which aids orthopaedic surgeons in the proper placement of the acetabular prosthetic component during Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA).

Second Prize Winner: GLASS TELEPRESENCE

Teresa Thomas, Gabriel Tomescu, David Farr

Glass Telepresence is offering revolutionary telepresence communications technology that enables life-size, high-definition, face-to-face visual and spoken communication between remote locations.

Third Prize Winner: TALK MESH

Anton Lopyrev, Francis Ian Mendiola, Prabhdeep Gill, Artem Lopyrev

Talkmesh is a multi-platform, dedicated application for you and your closest friends to keep in touch.

In addition to the pitch competition, the Impact Team was able to use the tradeshow setup at the conference to network with industry partners and students from across the province. One of the other highlights of the conference was certainly the keynote by Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computers.

Great job to all members of the Impact Team that made it to the event: Christine Lu, Teresa Choo, Nikhita Singh, Scott Tolksdorf, Dave Hale, Judith Ma, Sarah Katyal, Vino Jeyapalan and Yong Lim. Congratulations team for a job well done!

For the past few months, Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) and Impact have been working closely together to organize the Ontario’s Next Top Entrepreneur Pitch Competition. A large number of undergraduate and graduate student teams from across the province applied to for the chance to pitch their business ideas. Ten Semi-finalists were selected and interviewed. Now, after much deliberation and review, the Top 5 teams have been chosen!  Presented in alphabetical order, they are:

Avenir Medical Inc.
The heart of Avenir Medical Inc. is PelvAssist™, an intra-operative guidance tool which aids orthopaedic surgeons in the proper placement of the acetabular prosthetic component during Total Hip Arthroplasty (THA).

Glass Telepresence
Glass Telepresence is offering revolutionary telepresence communications technology that enables life-size, high-definition, face-to-face visual and spoken communication between remote locations.

Legendary Lawns
Legendary Lawns is a unique lawn care business that has combined its strengths in sales and operations to gain profitability within its first year.

TalkMesh
TalkMesh is a service that lets friends instantly message each other from anywhere by creating “meshes” that can be accessed on any platform, including iPhone and Blackberry.

ThinkPanda
Thinkpanda is a collaboration platform for people focused in academia and research to manage and mature their ideas, helping to make the most out of the cumulative knowledge in their communities and organizations.

These teams now move on to deliver their pitch at the Discovery 2010 conference. The winning team will be enrolled in OCE’s Centre for Commercialization of Research’s New Entrepreneur Program, where they will be granted a non-recourse micro-loan of up to $18,000 ($6,000 per team member), have access to advisory services, and have the opportunity to network with key mentors and private investors.

The conference will be held on May 17th and 18th at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Don’t miss this great opportunity to mix and mingle with key mentors and private investors. As well, there is an amazing list of speakers lined up for this event, including Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, as the keynote. Sign up for Discovery ‘10 today! Click here to register.

As some of you already know from an earlier post, we here at Impact are proud to present Ontario’s Next Top Entrepreneur, a pitch competition to be held at the Ontario Centres for Excellence Discovery 2010 Conference.

Ontario Centres of Excellence is offering up to $18,000 cash for any undergraduate or graduate student team in Ontario that is looking for funding to start up their company. Recent graduates are also welcome. All you have to do is submit a quick online application form application form with an optional video by Monday, April 19th, 2010!

The top five teams will move on to deliver their pitch at Ontario Centres of Excellence’s (OCE) Discovery 2010 conference. The winning team will be enrolled in OCE’s Centre for Commercialization of Research’s New Entrepreneur Program where they will be granted a non-recourse micro-loan of up to $18,000 ($6,000 per team member), have access to advisory services, and have the opportunity to network with key mentors and private investors.

Registration for this competition ends soon, so don’t wait any longer!  Apply now and you might become Ontario’s Next Top Entrepreneur!

Are you Ontario’s Next Top Entrepreneur? Send in your application today! Only 4 days left!