Most ideas die.
Not because they were wrong.
Because no one ever shows what becomes of them.
An idea is the most precious thing a person can hold. And the cheapest.
Worth nothing until it appears. Worth everything the moment it does.
And vanishes without a trace — if no one acts on it.
To think is one skill. To turn thought into a thing — another.
A discovery, that someone may make into a medicine on a shelf.
An invention, that someone may make into a device in the world.
An idea, that someone may make into a company with people in it.
The same skill — in different fields. And it is taught somewhere different from where thinking is taught.
This skill is called entrepreneurship.
The word is misleading — it sounds like sales. But it is about something else.
Some arrive with an invention, and do not know how to put it before the people who need it. Some arrive with an ordinary idea for a small business, and do not know where to begin.
They are taught the same thing. How to take what lives only in the head, and place it in the world so it functions.
Money committed to entrepreneurial education is not an expense. It is an investment.
The return: new entrepreneurs, new companies, new taxpayers.
For the country. For those who placed it. For the people who learned.
A few years after the program — these people have companies of their own.
Small, mid-sized, all kinds. Jobs come into being. Products that were not there before. Taxpayers where there had been none.
This is the result — and the reason for all of it.
Not for us. For the country. For the people themselves.
We fund business education in Canada through three programs.
Scholarships Direct funding for those enrolled in entrepreneurship programs.
Seed grants First capital for ideas at the moment they are ready to be acted on.
Research grants Investment in studies into entrepreneurship itself — made so those working in the field can draw on them.