Career Options Magazine

Pharmacy students as entrepreneurs?

Many people think that studying business is the best way to learn the skills necessary to create a successful business. However, this is not always the case. The knowledge base for a business can come from any number of fields and areas of expertise, such as health care, community outreach and even the military.

Jeff Wandzura is a participant in this year’s The Next 36 program, in which 36 students from universities across the country are separated into nine groups of four and challenged to come up with a product they’re in charge of creating, marketing and selling—in other words, starting a business.

Wandzura is a pharmacy student going into his fourth year of undergraduate studies at the University of Saskatchewan. He is now also the President and CEO of EDO Mobile Health. The freshly minted company has developed a mobile app called MobiCare that aids in caregiving for people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Wandzura says the app helps to organize care by connecting the support team of the person affected through alerts and requests for help. The app also helps caregivers to identify the progression of Alzheimer’s by inputting the person’s symptoms and comparing them to others with the disease.

The idea for MobiCare was a collaborative effort, Wandzura says, adding that his team “wanted to do something in the health care field and a couple of our teammates are personally affected by Alzheimer’s.” He sees the importance of bringing technology into the health care field, and says the creation of MobiCare is helping to do that.

Wandzura became involved in The Next 36 because he couldn’t see himself working at a nine-to-five job in a pharmacy.

“When you have your own business, you see the results of your hard work right off the bat,” he says. “You see success for the time you put in, and you meet lots of interesting people.”

The Next 36 is not the only program that supports young Canadian entrepreneurs. The University of Waterloo’s unique Enterprise Co-op program allows students to build their own company during their co-op term, rather than working for an established company in their field of study.

Logan Fuller is an electrical engineering student who has taken full advantage of the Enterprise Co-op program. He has created the prototype for a web application called Oikoi (which means ‘houses’ in Greek) that will help students find housing.

Fuller came up with the idea through his own experiences and through talking with other students. He says most students use Kijiji or Craigslist to find housing, but these sites are not tailored to the needs of a student looking for a place to live.

“There is an inherent distrust with postings on these sites,” Fuller says. “You never really know what the living space will actually be like.”

Oikoi will use existing programs such as Facebook and Twitter to give students more information about the area and the accommodations they are potentially renting or leasing. Another feature under development is a compatibility program for people seeking roommates.

Fuller says that being an entrepreneur, especially from a non-business background, has its challenges but also its rewards. “I am constantly learning about the business side of things,” Fuller says. “You have to wear many hats when you are the CEO of a startup.”

Fuller says that Waterloo’s Enterprise Co-op program is extremely valuable, offering an opportunity not only to start your own company but also to gain experience in your field in the process.

“Professors push you to think outside of the box,” Fuller says. “The University of Waterloo really supports entrepreneurship.”

Fuller will be taking a year off from his studies to grow Oikoi into a profitable business, something that the University of Waterloo fully supports, he says.

Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) is a worldwide organization that provides another example of students from different faculties coming together and using their various fields of expertise to develop something new.

Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s has an extremely successful SIFE team, which has won many competitions over the years, including the SIFE World Cup in 2008.

Shane Skinner, President of SIFE Memorial, says each university SIFE team has its own mission statement. Memorial’s mission is to find “local solutions to global economic challenges,” he says, adding that SIFE Memorial is “all about giving a hand up, not a hand out.”

One of SIFE Memorial’s ventures is the Bright Futures program, which gives people with disabilities who are unable to hold regular jobs the opportunity to find ways to make a profit from something they are passionate about.

Jackie Squire is among the participants who have benefitted greatly from the program. Because of her disability she was bullied throughout her life, but never had the courage to speak out about her experiences.

Now in her mid-thirties, Squire has written and illustrated a book about the struggles of being different and being bullied because of it. Through Bright Futures, SIFE Memorial went through business techniques with Squire, coaching her on personal financing and networking, Skinner says. He adds that Squire has now sold more than 300 copies of her book for a profit of more than $34,000.

Although there is huge support for the SIFE program in the Faculty of Business Administration at Memorial, Skinner says the 64 members come from all faculties.

“It is 100 percent beneficial to have students from different faculties with different experiences and facilities,” Skinner says. “It gives us a well-rounded group to continue developing the best projects to help people in need.”

Although university is a stimulating environment that often facilitates the growth of new ideas and even entrepreneurial ventures, great ideas for businesses can also come from other life experiences.

Fred Aubin is the founder of Strategic Red Team Consulting, a consulting firm based on ideas and values he learned during his long career in the military.

Aubin was a Combat Arms officer in the Canadian Forces for 35 years and has served all over the world. In his later years, he became the head campaign planner for the Canadian Forces. When it was time to retire from the military, Aubin was offered numerous jobs in the government as well as in the private sector, but he was not drawn to any of them.

“I didn’t like what they were producing,” he says. “It all seemed very flavour of the day.”

And thus Strategic Red Team Consulting was born. Aubin says people in the military must be strong communicators, as well as disciplined, strategic and organized—all qualities that he felt would be of value in the business world as well.

Aubin says he purposely advertises his military background as part of his business, and his clients find it to be SRTC’s strongest quality. “I’m not afraid of being old school,” he says.

Aubin believes that examining past successes while being innovative and different is the key to being a successful entrepreneur. The venture also needs to be something you enjoy and are passionate about, he says, quoting the Joker in The Dark Knight: “If you’re good at something, don’t do it for free.”

 

Hilary Thomson is a journalism student at Carleton University.

 

For more information, please visit: thenext36.ca, edomhealth.com, cecs.uwaterloo.ca/students/enterprise, oikoi.co, sifememorial.ca, stratredteam.com, careeroptionsmagazine.com