YEDI York Entrepreneurship Development Institute · est. 2013
YEDI is a Toronto-based entrepreneurship institute that admits, teaches, mentors and certifies founders. It is a registered Canadian charity (No. 81209 5735 RR0001). Programmes are tuition-free for Canadians and open to international applicants. YEDI runs certificate and diploma tracks, business-acceleration campuses, and an annual Venture Fair that connects founders with investors, partners and customers.
What YEDI does.
YEDI is, first, a teaching institute. Every programme ends in a deliverable the founder can take outside the room — a developed business plan, an executive summary, an actionable business model — and in a certificate or diploma issued in YEDI's own name. On their own site YEDI describes itself as the only start-up incubator in Ontario that equips entrepreneurs with formal institutional certification upon completion.
Second, YEDI is a venue. Founders accepted into the Ventures in Residence stream take working space at one of YEDI's business-acceleration campuses and are assigned a committee of industry mentors. Faculty, instructors and mentors come from YEDI's own roster.
Third, YEDI runs an annual Venture Fair. Selected graduates pitch in front of an industry audience drawn from YEDI's mentor network — venture firms, banks, prospective customers and partners — and present the work they built during the programme.
Programmes carried at YEDI.
Incubator
Selected entrepreneurs sit with YEDI professors and instructors across business theory and economics.
Entrepreneurship Essentials
Fundamentals track for founders without a business background.
Not-For-Profit
Operator track for charities and community ventures.
Innovation Bridge
Programme connecting the cohort to global markets.
Youth
Younger founders' track.
International
For applicants from outside Canada.
Global Start-Up Missions
Cohort missions abroad.
Entrepreneurship & Small Business Management
The full diploma. Hands-on curriculum in entrepreneurship and operator practice.
Academic Pathways
Articulated routes upstream into further academic credentials.
Business Acceleration Program
Working address at a YEDI campus, with a mentor committee attached.
Pathway to Letter of Support
Structured route for founders pursuing an institutional Letter of Support.
Where to reach YEDI.
York Entrepreneurship Development Institute
907 Alness Street
Toronto, Ontario · M3J 2J1 · Canada