Faculty of Business Administration - University of New Brunswick

UNB’s Activator team, “KnowCharge," won the silver prize of $60,000 in investment equity and in kind services at the New Brunswick Innovation Fund (NBIF) Breakthru competition held on March 25, 2009.

The company, made up of team leader, Chris Marshall and MBA teammates Rob Morrow and Edgar Gallibois, was formed through the Activator program, which is coordinated by UNB’s International Business and Entrepreneurship Centre (IBEC). KnowCharge produces a special conductive paper that, when used as an alternative to plastic based protective packaging, could save electronics manufacturers millions by eliminating the damage that static can cause during shipping.

In addition to the silver prize, KnowCharge Inc. shared the prize for best university venture with another UNB team, “Smart Skin”.

The Smart Skin team is made of up of MBA and Engineering students (Imran Khan, Irenia Roussel, Sabeer Zaman and Dr. Felipe Chibante), led by Kumaran Thillainadarajah. Using nanotechnology to detect and measure pressure, Smart Skin is an artificial touch-sensitive skin for prosthetic limbs. The super-thin film works with existing myoelectric control systems to provide control of touch, much like the skin of a real hand.

The Smart Skin team also won the $60,000 prize for best young entrepreneur as well as the prize for the most outstanding presentation and the viewer's choice award. They won the viewer's choice award after more than seven thousand people voted on the CBC website; the team will travel to Toronto to pitch their business on the set of CBC's Dragon's Den.

Posted at 1:05 PM

UNB’s International Business and Entrepreneurship Centre (IBEC) combined National Small Business Week (October 19 – 24) with its visiting scholar series by bringing Dr. Reg Litz, from the I. H. Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba.

A professor of entrepreneurship with research and teaching interests in small business, family enterprise and business ethics, Dr. Litz facilitated two research sessions for UNB students and faculty. The first session was entitled “Kitty Hawk in the Classroom” and focused on entrepreneurship. 

In his second session, “Two Sides of a One-Sided Phenomenon: Conceptualizing the Family Business and Business Family as a Mobius Strip”, Dr. Litz discussed the his paper of the same title (published in Family Business Review, September 2008) in which he compares the family business and the business family to a one-sided strip known as the “Mobius strip.”

Dr. Litz received his PhD in strategic planning and policy from the University of Pittsburgh in 1997, and focuses his research on small incumbent strategy, family enterprise, and business ethics. The recipient of several awards at the university and faculty level, Dr. Litz teaches courses in new, small and family business.  His work has been published in several leading entrepreneurial and family firm research journals including Theory & Practice, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Small Business Management and Family Business Review.

IBEC concluded National Small Business Week with a panel discussion centred on family business. The four panellists were Dr. Litz; Terry Malley, president of his own family business, Malley Industries Ltd.; Doug Motty, Executive Director of Enterprise Fredericton; and Michelle Audas, Senior Business Advisor with CIBC Small Business. The panel addressed the concerns and questions members of the audience had about starting new businesses, obtaining financing for new businesses or new projects, and succession planning. The audience was made of students and faculty members from UNB, and small business owners in the Fredericton area.

For almost 30 years, the Business Development Bank of Canada has organized Small Business Week, which encourages everyone to pay tribute to our Canadian entrepreneurs. The theme of this year’s Small Business Week was a world without boundaries, open to new markets.

“The theme recognizes the efforts and contributions of Canadian entrepreneurs to the national economy and acknowledges the importance of financial and consulting support for innovative and promising ideas,” said the Business Development Bank of Canada.

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Posted at 3:19 PM

Dr. Nikhil Varaiya, the famed entrepreneurship professor from San Diego State University, made an appearance at UNB last week as part of the International Business and Entrepreneurship Centre's Visiting Scholar's Series.

Chairman of the Department of Finance of San Diego State's College of Business Administration, Varaiya has won numerous awards for his research into corporate finance and was at UNB to present a lecture entitled 'Teaching Entrepreneurial Finance.'

Focusing on such topics as Credit Unions, Venture Capitalists, and Evolution of Startups, Varayia spoke for over two hours on the various areas of entrepreneurial finance. This included the information that out of 1000 new companies, only seven to twenty will go on to become a long-term public corporation.

Varaiya was also a guest speaker in two of the Faculty's classes, including a fourth-year Competitive Strategy class. He presented his Strategic Value Based Management Framework, which tries to capture the major decisions and aspects that are relevant to managers engaged in strategic decision making. Other strategic management tools, such as Strategy Maps, also try to do this, but Varaiya’s framework has a much stronger integration with the financial components of strategy.

The course's professor, Dr. Martin Wielemaker, stated that “Varaiya’s framework enabled the students to easily interrelate all the important aspects of the Capstone business simulation that they had competed in over the past months.”

Posted at 3:03 PM

A team from the University of New Brunswick impressed the judges and took top prize at this month’s New Brunswick Innovation Foundation’s (NBIF) BREAKTHRU business plan competition.

Greenlight Geomatics won the platinum prize for its invention of a GPS system that attaches to a railcar and maps and controls herbicide spray without affecting environmentally sensitive areas. Railway companies across North America spend millions of dollars per year to manually get rid of plant growth that threatens track safety. This invention will save the industry money and provide it with a more effective and efficient method of keeping railway tracks clear.
As the platinum winner, Greenlight Geomatics will receive $100,000 in equity investment from NBIF. It will also receive $39,500 in in-kind branding and marketing, legal, accounting, IT consulting, business mentoring, and website and hosting services.

Based in Miramichi, N.B., Greenlight Geomatics is lead by Herman Koops, owner of Miramichi surveying company ABOUND, and is comprised of Brad Pierce second-year MBA student; Khaled Taha, third-year BBA student; Anthony Llukwe, second-year software engineering student; and John Lord, fifth-year mechanical engineering student.

All members of the Greenlight Geomatics team are participants in UNB’s Activator Program, an initiative of the faculty of business administration and International Business and Entrepreneurship Centre (IBEC). The program is designed to help MBA students earn a concentration in entrepreneurship while getting experience working on real-life start up ventures. Students are matched with entrepreneurs looking to transform their ideas into a business reality.

The Activator builds on close partnerships between faculties on at UNB. Currently the faculty of business administration and the Dr. J Herbert Smith Centre work very closely in delivering courses and student teams to the Activator program.

UNB MBA graduate Rivers Corbett and the Trivnet Media System team received the gold prize for their tabletop multimedia device that entertains, informs, and bills customers at their restaurant table. Mr. Corbett is president and co-founder of The Chef Group. The Trivnet Media System team also includes William Trivett, an electrical engineering student at UNB.

BREAKTHRU, New Brunswick’s Business Plan competition, is a unique opportunity for entrepreneurially minded New Brunswickers to transform their innovative business ideas into viable business ventures. It provides participants with everything needed to launch a business successfully including access to expert feedback, mentoring, start-up capital and support.
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Posted at 10:10 AM

The Faculty of Business Administration’s International Business and Entrepreneurship Centre in association with Enterprise Fredericton are hosting a panel of business leaders entitled ‘Ask a Professional’ on Friday, October 19th. The event begins at 2:30 PM in the President's Room of the Alumni Memorial Building and will be followed by refreshments.

The panel is made up of local business leaders from the areas of accounting, law, entrepreneurship, banking, and equity capital will consist of the following members:

Mr. Kenny Kyle, Teed Saunders Doyle & Co.
Mr. Michael Connors, Allen Dixon Smith
Mrs. Jill Green, Green Imaging Technologies
Ms. Judy Wood, HSBC
Mr. Calvin Milbury, New Brunswick Innovation Foundation

To see pictures of this event click here.

Posted at 11:26 AM

On Friday, September 27, the Faculty of Business Administration's International Business and Entrepreneurship Centre hosted their annual kick-off event for the Export Partnering Program at the Delta Fredericton.

The all-day session was a tremendous success, which for the first time ever was co-hosted by the Universite de Moncton. In attendance were three teams from UdeM, one from Atlantic Baptist Universite, and four from UNB.

Another first for this year's event was the attendance of many account members from the Atlantic Canadian Opportunities Agency, the primary financial supporter of the Export Partnering Program.

The day consisted of presentations from the various student teams, a tour of the Canada Business Centre, and the announcement that VerifyRX a business developed by MBA students Rob Morrow and Edgar Gallibois, is now working with the Export Partnering Program and will be heading on the program's year-end marketing trek, which is the first-time that ACOA has approved something of this nature.

Posted at 11:46 AM

In order to further support research into the areas of international business and entrepreneurship, the Faculty of Business Administration's International Business and Entrepreneurship Centre recently launched the Visiting Scholars Speakers Series, open to students, faculty, and the business community free of charge.

The Series' first speaker was Dr. Ed McMullan from the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary who hosted a seminar in his area of expertise: entrepreneurship.

The Visiting Scholars Series is intended as a supplement to the Centre's soon to be officially launched Activator program, and will provide students with the opportunity to get advice from leading experts in the fields of entrepreneurship, new venture creation, entrepreneurial finance, and new venture creation.

The next event in the Series will be this coming April as Dr. Nikhil Varaiya, an expert in entrepreneurial finance, will be participating in faculty research seminars, in the entrepreneurial finance course, and will be offering a seminar to the business community as well.

Also appearing in April will be Dr. Jeffry Timmons, an entrepreneurship expert from Babson College in Boston, and Dr. Reg Litz, an expert in entrepreneurship and family business from the University of Manitoba, both will be delivering seminars with Dr. Litz's expected to close out the Series for the year.

Posted at 11:39 AM

BMO Financial Group is donating $750,000 to UNB’s International Business and Entrepreneurship Centre (IBEC) in the Faculty of Business Administration. A major contribution to the University’s Forging Our Futures Campaign, the gift will provide UNB business students with real-world experience while, at the same time, giving small businesses access to planning and export expertise.

“The University of New Brunswick’s relationship with BMO dates back more than a century. We’re pleased to have them as a leading partner for this one-of-a-kind program which benefits both students and entrepreneurs in Atlantic Canada,” said John McLaughlin, UNB President and Vice-Chancellor.

The $750,000 gift will support IBEC’s two main programs. The Export Partnering Program (EPP) assists companies in developing export plans for foreign markets, and is delivered in partnership with UNB Saint John’s Faculty of Business and Atlantic Baptist University in Moncton. The MBA Student Consulting Group (SCG) provides consulting services to private sector companies in New Brunswick, offering advice in marketing, accounting, human resources management, finance, and strategic planning.

“At BMO Bank of Montreal, we are committed to small business and are proud of our performance in helping small businesses grow. Our partnership with IBEC is further proof of that commitment, as we want to help the Centre develop and support entrepreneurial leadership and international competitiveness among the university community and growth oriented small businesses in New Brunswick,” said Rob Pearce, President and CEO, Personal and Commercial Client Group, BMO Bank of Montreal.

Mr. Pearce also noted that New Brunswick is Canada’s most export-oriented economy, pointing to the success of local entrepreneurs and the quality and competitiveness of their products.

The Export Partnering Program is unique to Atlantic Canada. To date, 69 companies and 390 UNB students have participated in the EPP program, while the SCG program partners with three-to-five small businesses per year. A number of business graduates have been hired to implement the recommendations developed in their projects.

The Bank of Montreal has been UNB's banker for more than 100 years. This strong partnership was further strengthened in 1997 when BMO Bank of Montreal became a founding partner of the Centre for Entrepreneurial Leadership, a forerunner of IBEC.

Since 1817, BMO Financial Group has supported the principles of community reinvestment and corporate and social responsibility to the communities it serves. BMO Financial Group contributed more than $29 million in corporate donations, sponsorships and events in 2004, supporting thousands of communities, charities and not-for-profit organizations in Canada.

Forging Our Futures is the most important development campaign in UNB’s more-than-200-year history. It will make strategic investments in students, faculty, facilities and programs. The campaign will strengthen UNB’s position as a national university that is fundamentally important to the economic, social and cultural well-being of the province, the region and the country. Officially launched in June, Forging Our Futures is the largest fundraising campaign in New Brunswick history. More information on the campaign can be found online at www.unbfutures.ca.

Posted at 11:38 AM