Thirty-three awards given out for Laval region
Published May 19 , 2010
CLD de Laval organisers : Top row : Alex Robitaille, Nathalie Plante, regional
director, Martin Lapierre, Emmanuelle Saulnier. Bottom row : Denise Lavallée,
Annie St-Marseille, Nathalie Caron, Elizabeth Pyshnov
It was with great enthusiasm that Robert Lefebvre, president of the CLD Laval and the Association des CLD du Québec, and François Sansregret, president of the Concours québécois en entrepreneuriat, and François Beauregard, president of Pyxis Technologie and honorary president of the contest for Laval, opened the 12th edition of the Concours québécois en entrepreneuriat. The gala was held on May 4 at the Embassy Plaza with more than 220 guests.
The Concours québécois en entrepreneuriat is the only national contest which brings together the realms of business and education. It is unique, because it focuses on youths from the educational sector as well as new and future entrepreneurs in 17 administrative regions of Quebec. The model is a very good promotional tool, for developing and rewarding entrepreneurialism, and is also the only one of its kind in Quebec to hand out bursaries and prizes of such high value.
In Laval this year, $19,300 was allotted for 33 prizes, for a total of 97 projects received by last March 15. Sixty-three projects were submitted in the category “student entrepreneurialism” and 34 projects in the category “enterprise creation.”
It is important to point out that all the prize winners obtained marks which were higher than the passing grade set for Laval, which was 70 per cent.
The purpose of the contest is to develop an entrepreneurial culture in Quebec by the implementation and recognition of new businesses and entrepreneurial projects in the community and school sectors. On the one hand, the segment “student entrepreneurialism” is designed specifically for students from grade school up to university, who have completed projects during the school year (from June 2009 to June 2010) using their creativity and entrepreneurial ablilities.
The “business creation” segment assesses the entrepreneurial abilities of candidates who have Canadian citizenship, reside in Quebec, are aged 18 and over and who have a business project concerning the creation of a new business in Quebec, which is to say it has had no sales revenue before April 1, 2009 and for which the launch date has been set for Dec. 31, 2010. The categories are: social economy, commerce, biofood, exploitation/transformation/production, technological and technical innovations, services to individuals, and services to businesses.