Published on Brock University (http://www.brocku.ca)
Research up close
Program connects Brock entrepreneurs with angel investors
April 2, 2013
It’s not often people find themselves in a room full of angels, especially while they’re still on earth. But for Drew Marquardt, a recent weekend in Toronto gave him a front-row glimpse into another dimension: business heaven.
The second-year PhD physics student was one of 10 participants across Ontario to attend what’s been dubbed a “business finishing school,” a place where angels - or angel investors in the business world - take aspiring entrepreneurs under their wings, and teach them a wide range of business and management skills, as well as invest in startup enterprises.
The business weekend is part of Ontario Centres of Excellence’s SmartStart program, created last year to help young entrepreneurs gain the skills, seed financing and other support to start their own businesses. Participants are in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
From Brock to Mars and back: A Q&A with Mariek Schmidt
Mar 1, 2013
Volcanologist and igneous petrologist Mariek Schmidt [5] is one of 400 scientists worldwide monitoring and analyzing data from Mars that’s being collected by the rover vehicle Curiosity, which landed on the Red Planet last August.
She spent a couple of months at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, developing plans for the rover to follow a geological route.
Schmidt is back in her Brock office, continuing to analyze the data and participate in developing daily plans for the rover.
BN: Describe what it was like to work with the team in California last year.
Schmidt: We were together for the first 90 sols of the mission. A sol is one day on Mars, consisting of approximately 24.5 Earth hours. The idea was to have the entire science team all together living on Mars time so that we could synchronize communication with the rover and imaging orbiters that orbit Mars once a day.
Brock alum gets University’s help to launch green business
Feb 1, 2013
It all started out as a class project.
David D’Angelo was intrigued by the concept of biodegradable forks, knives, spoons and other utensils, a technology his father stumbled across while running factories in China.
So, D’Angelo presented the idea to his entrepreneurship professor Teresa Menzies, who “really liked” the pitch. As his course assignment in his fourth year, he wrote out a formal business plan.
“At first, I was just doing it as a class project,” recalls the 21-year-old. “As I started to get into it, I got more passionate about it. Eventually, now, it turned into my current business.”
As he begins his business, D’Angelo will focus initially on producing biodegradable cosmetics containers.
Read the full story [7].